


In All Possible Worlds

by AvaRosier



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-24
Updated: 2017-06-30
Packaged: 2018-11-18 07:35:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 29,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11286636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AvaRosier/pseuds/AvaRosier
Summary: Various drabbles dumped here. Let's hope I don't become one of those people with five hundred different tags on this.





	1. what passes in the dark (Sansa/Jon/Oberyn)

It’s half past eleven and the only light in the front of the passenger car comes from the passing lamps, casting bars of faint yellow-orange that dart across their bodies. This is how Sansa knows for certain that both men keep looking at each other and at her.

She knows what’s coming; she’s not obtuse.

She wants it. She wants them.

Nobody else is in this compartment- it’s just her and Oberyn, with Jon opposite them. Her cheeks still hurt from all the talking, laughing they’d done through dinner and the first leg of the journey from the conference they’d just attended in Queenscrown back to Citadel University in Oldtown.

With the windows down, the clean scent of the late October snap is keeping her brain sharp. Sansa inhales deeply at the same time Oberyn places his hand on her thigh.

Of course it’s _him_ who makes the first move, with Jon watching, always watching with those solemn eyes of his. She thinks it was always coming to this.

Hers and Oberyn’s debate earlier had gotten heated, and it is for that reason Sansa has enough audacity to turn to face him as she spreads her knees apart. His eyebrows raise at the challenge and those fingers, callused from years of fencing and playing guitar, graze along her bared inner thighs until they’re disappearing underneath her skirt, drawing ever closer to the need that has been throbbing inside her for the better part of the night.

He first slides two fingers over the front panel of her cotton panties, causing her to gasp at the sharp bloom of pleasure. Sansa is just distracted enough by the exploratory, teasing way Oberyn is touching her- and more than a little disbelief that this is really happening- that she almost misses him murmuring:

“Can you imagine how wet she already is?” There’s something about hearing him speak to Jon about her that has her bucking against Oberyn’s hand.

Her eyes blink open to see Jon’s mouth open in a small ‘o’, lips glistening as he watches them with a half-lidded stare, one hand massaging the erection pressing against the material of his jeans.

“I’d be even wetter if you moved my panties out of the way,” Sansa retorts. Oberyn’s puff of laughter tickles her ear.

“Impatient.”

“Greedy,” she corrects him.

“Well, far be it from me to deny the lady what she wants.”

When his fingers glide through her folds and then pull back to rub over the hood of her clit, her gasp turns to a shuddering moan. Her left hand is still gripping the arm of her seat but the right darts out to clutch at his thigh. (She won’t lie- the fact that she has been spending a lot of time with two men who favor tight jeans has been a blessing and a curse all rolled up into one.)

“Tilt your hips for me a bit, sweetheart.” She obeys the command and is rewarded with his fingers inside her. They may not be particularly long compared to hers, but they are thicker and that seems to be the magical trick because Sansa now knows she won’t last much longer.

Oberyn begins to fuck her, his fingers pumping in and out of her, the palm of his hand giving her something to grind against. She finds herself rocking against the seat, holding onto his forearm and pushing the moving hand in between her thighs ever closer. The motion of the train is working wonders, as well.

“She’s squeezing you out,” Jon points out, making Sansa frown. She’s doing just _fine_ like this, thankyouverymuch. 

Scarcely does Oberyn mutter, “it’s not like I can do anything about that with only one hand,” than another set of hands are on her body, placing themselves on her knees and pushing her legs further apart. Sansa looks down in a daze to see Jon kneeling before her. Oberyn does manage to yank the front of her top down over her bra and, with a truly impressive dexterity and speed, unsnap the front clasp holding the two cups together.

It’s all too much: Jon’s hot mouth and the rough pad of his tongue swirling over her now-exposed nipples, the edge of Oberyn’s teeth on her neck and earlobe, the wet noises coming from between her thighs, and the partial immobilization of her hips courtesy of Jon only makes her strain harder, desperately chasing the tension towards the cliff’s drop.

She comes with a deep cry, writhing against the two male bodies pressed to hers, who continue to work her over until she’s a shaking, boneless mess.  Pleasure is pounding through her with blinding waves, with the black oblivion of satisfaction close on its heels. But even then, Sansa is loathe to stop- it may be exquisite torture, but she wants to keep going until every last spasm has been wrung from her.

 

Later, when Oberyn’s hand is drying itself, resting on her thigh and her panties are a sticky mess, it’s Jon who stands up and says: “We should move this back to one of the sleeper compartments.”

 

It’s nearly one in the morning and completely dark in Oberyn’s cabin when she has her next orgasm, with the lights of Seagard to the west.


	2. heart flips, you got me floatin' (your lips, your lips) (Jon/Sansa)

This was entirely Margaery’s fault. She was the one who had spotted the neon flyer proclaiming _Kiss A Stranger!_ The sub-description had mentioned filming a video for an art project at Ladybright Hall and so Marg had insisted that her and Sansa sign up.

Two hours later and the Daiquiri Sansa’d had with lunch had worn off, leaving her alone with the dawning reality of what she had gotten herself into. She stood in one of the filming rooms, with a neutral gray backdrop behind her, and waited for a stranger to walk through the door and kiss her.

She had just wanted to move on from Harry. Get a new haircut, maybe. Retail therapy, definitely.

This was altogether more terrifying.

The door opened while the makeup artist was touching her up, so of course she couldn’t just turn around and peek. She heard voices, one distinctly male. He sounded pleasant and he was chuckling at what one of the project managers was telling him. Finally, Sansa thanked the woman and turned around to check out her partner.

Her throat went dry.

 _Oh no, he’s hot_.

He was maybe a few years older than her, albeit an inch or two shorter. Not that this made him any less attractive. Curly dark brown hair, matching eyes, a trim beard, and a fit body she would have no problem fantasizing about when touching herself.  The man stepped onto the canvas, sticking his hand out for her to shake, looking so earnest as he did so.

“I’m Jon.”

“Sansa. Pleased to meet you.”

It would be no hardship kissing him, Sansa thought to herself. No hardship at all.

The corner of Jon’s mouth turned up in a small smile. “Even with the total awkwardness of having to kiss someone you’ve barely exchanged a dozen words with?”

Sansa cocked an eyebrow. “Careful, a girl might think she wasn’t enough,” she teased him. Jon actually _blushed_. It was adorable! He even ran a hand through his hair as he ducked his face down to hide his embarrassment.

“I would n- that’s to say- I mean you’re gorgeous! I could definitely kiss you for hours…” Jon, realizing what he’d just said, groaned, closing his eyes. “ _Father smite me_.”

Sansa hid a grin.

The room grew quiet and Jon turned to the manager. “Did you want us to just start now?” He sounded a little desperate.

The woman standing behind the camera smiled brightly. “Oh we’re already filming. But yes, you can start at your own pace.”

Jon groaned again and this time, Sansa giggled. “Of course they would film the awkward part for posterity.”

It was like Jon gave himself a two-seconds long pep talk, because he was squaring his shoulders and turning to train an intensely focused look on her. She barely had time to brace herself before he stepped up to her and curled his fingers around her own.  This close, his breath danced over her chin.

“I hope you don’t mind beards,” he murmured even as his lips were scant inches from her own. Her response came out much breathier than she’d intended.

“If you know what to do with your lips, I won’t even notice the beard.”

Jon closed the distance between their lips, moving his other hand up to cup her jaw as they kissed. Soft. First, a simple touch of lips, a gentle and warm pressure. He brushed his thumb over her cheekbone and opened his mouth to hers.  Just like that, Sansa was ensnared. Her free hand rose and rested on his shoulder. Her body, which she had held just far enough away, now began to press against his and Jon responded with the introduction of his tongue against the seam of her lips.

She could smell the faint traces of his cologne, the hibiscus just outside the open window, and taste the mint-gum taste from his mouth. His body was not still, muscles twitching along her own. Sansa could even feel the faint press of his growing erection as they continued to explore each other’s likes and responses. It took quite a bit of effort to keep herself from brushing purposefully against it. She let out a small moan when Jon’s fingers reached over the line of her dress to caress the bare skin of her back.

It was safe to say they forgot about their voyeurs. Oh, Sansa was aware enough of where she was to keep her fingers from doing anything more than clutching at Jon’s hip rather than his arse. But she had become wholly absorbed in the kiss that she didn’t have the faintest idea how long it had been going on or whether they should stop anytime soon.

She nipped at his bottom lip and the hand that had had been cupping her jaw slid into her hair and tugged lightly. Sansa inhaled sharply, dragging her fingernails down his back and feeling the jerk of his hips as she did so.

Their kisses grew reckless, uncontrolled, and her skin began to feel the burn from the bristles of his beard. Her nerve endings were utterly electrified. It was Jon who returned his hands to her face, taking control of the kiss and slowing it down until they were savoring each pass of their tongues against each others’.

Gradually, they came back to themselves and finally parted with one last chaste kiss. Sansa kept her eyes shut as she stood there with one hand just underneath his shirt, teasing the indentation in his hipbones and trying to get her body back under control. There was definitely a cool, damp spot in her panties and those callused fingers of his were lightly brushing over the skin on the back of her neck, causing her to shiver again.

She opened her eyes and stared into Jon’s own and was struck by how blown his pupils were, how swollen his lips appeared, and the strange expression on his face that made her wish they could just keep going. He blinked.

“Was that good enough for you?” He asked, voice low and raspy.

“Oh yes,” Sansa murmured at the same time the manager squeaked out: “Definitely!”

That shook her out of her daze and she broke her eye contact with Jon to focus on the other people in the room. Sansa let her hands fall from his body and began to step backwards. Jon moved away as well, swallowing hard enough that she saw his Adam’s apple bobble.

“I definitely forgot about the beard,” she told him softly, hoping the comment wouldn’t be picked up by the microphone. Jon honest-to-goodness _smirked_ and for a moment she thought he was going to touch her again, but he diverted the path of his hand until he was rubbing the back of his neck.

“Good. I’m glad. I, ah, really enjoyed that.” Sansa couldn’t help grinning at his sudden return to shyness and something flipped in her stomach. The familiar, unwelcome stirrings of infatuation.

 _Oh no,_ she repeated, gripped by a sudden wave of anxiety. She’d enjoyed that a lot more than she had expected to and now she was irrationally fearful that she was reading so much more into this than there was. Sure, they’d made out, it was amazing, but that didn’t mean that it _meant_ anything more. She knew nothing about the man besides his name.

And his ability to give her toe-curling kisses.

They walked out the room together, trapped in the silence of their own thoughts. Sansa wasn’t exactly the bravest person, but she could be impulsive when it warranted it. Though maybe she’d yet to metabolize the last of the alcohol.

“Jon?”

“Mhm?”

She grabbed a fistful of his shirt and tugged him into an empty, dark room, closing the door behind herself and leaning her back against it.

He didn’t even need to be prompted; their lips met again as if they’d never been parted.


	3. hope, bright and tart (Jon/Sansa)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set in the same universe as Love Always Wakes the Dragon (and suddenly flames everywhere)

“Lady Sansa.”

Sansa gasped, startled, and spun around, dropping her hand guiltily against the small of her back as she met Prince Jon’s amused eyes. The overcrowded platters of lemoncakes covered nearly half the banquet table behind her, mocking her even now. It had been so long since she had permitted herself the pleasure of consuming one- only the safety of her present circumstances gave her the desire to indulge herself.

She had been wandering through the Grand Hall, not having planned on changing into one of her new dresses for the feast for another two hours, and spotted the table with dozens and dozens of glistening lemoncakes. If she pilfered just one, surely nobody would miss it, and she could enjoy devouring it in privacy without any one seeing how unladylike she was.

That plan was dashed now, thanks to the prince.

Her _betrothed_.

“Your Grace,” Sansa breathed, face flushing as she trained her eyes downwards. She hardly knew how to comport herself around him, despite having known him for two moons’ turns since he and his half-siblings had re-taken King’s Landing. She had experienced the unpleasant attentions of cruel, selfish men. Covetous. And she’d known what they wanted when they looked at her- it had made her skin crawl.

She wasn’t sure why she didn’t feel that way when Jon looked at her. Maybe it was because he often looked at her with awe, like he just wanted to please her, whereas all those other men didn’t seem like they would care if she begged them not to.

A sennight ago, she had allowed Jon to press her back into a dark corner behind a tapestry and kiss her senseless. She had clutched at his shoulders and gasped like a wanton at the hot sweep of his tongue. And his hands! Those broad palms and fingers, callused from heavy use of the sword, had caressed her hip through the layers of her skirts and shift.

“I requested that the kitchens make those for you, you know.” Jon explained, jerking his chin in the direction of the sweet treats.

It was such an odd, consuming sense of gratitude that swept through her then. “You hardly had to go to such trouble, Your Grace,” she murmured, cheeks hurting from the grin threatening to split open her face. “But thank you all the same.”

Only her years in the Red Keep kept her from asking how he had found out that particular piece of information.

“Of course, I didn’t realize your love of lemoncakes would drive you to petty thievery.” There was no censure, no threat in Jon’s voice- just amusement. He certainly looked handsome today with his hair unbound (perhaps Queen Rhaenys had been successful in her campaign to get him to sit for a trim) and a smart doublet in a shade of blue-gray that could only be a nod to his mother’s heitage, and that of his betrothed.

A giggle escaped her throat before she could stop it, startling her with how light it sounded. _Perhaps I could be happy with him, perhaps I could hope and dream again._

“Everyone has a weakness, Your Grace.” She playfully pointed out.

“Jon,” he reminded her once again. “We are to be married within a moon’s turn, after all.”

And Robb and her mother would be here for the joyous occasion- she was actually more excited to be reunited with her family than she was for her impeding nuptials, and she didn’t think her husband-to-be would be cross about that.

“Jon,” she acceded.

“Though I suppose it’s good I’m learning about your weaknesses now- you never know when this information might come in handy later on.”

Jon bowed before her, reaching out for her hand, which he brought up to his lips. He placed a warm, gentle kiss over her knuckles. Sansa couldn’t help being bold and giving him the answering stroke of her thumb over his forefinger. Silly, after the liberties she had already allowed him, but still.

“My lady,” he said in farewell, taking his leave of her. The possessive endearment caused a strange, fluttery sensation to erupt behind her ribcage.

 _My Prince_ , Sansa thought to herself, turning over the idea in her head and trying it on for fit. _My Jon_.

 

As she wrapped a single lemoncake in a piece of cloth, the memory of his lips on her skin tingled.


	4. liar liar hearts on fire (Jon/Sansa)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A smutty drabble wherein Sansa and Jon are in the middle of an undercover mission where they have to play an engaged couple. Which is awkward because they were once engaged, years ago, until Jon called it off thinking life as the wife of a soldier headed into a war zone would only hold Sansa back. The tension has been building between them as they struggle to toe the fine line between performance and truth. Something gives, finally.

At last, there was no more need for words.  

Sansa watched Jon turn around to face her, upsetting the mattress and tangling in the sheets to do so. Maybe it was the wine, maybe it was the intensity in his eyes- nearly black in the dim light of early dawn. She tried, for the hundredth time since this mission began, to tell herself that none of this was real; here, she was Alayne and here, he was Jacaerys. Playing an engaged couple was simply a hardship they had to endure in order to stop a drug smuggling operation.

But here she also was, powerless and ensnared by Jon’s eyes as he slid on top of her, hard and heavy. Their kiss could never be mistook for something tender, not with her memory of him walking away from her all those years ago, and not with his memory of discovering her subterfuge when they were supposed to be working together. It was Sansa, not Alayne, who bit down on Jon’s lip and hoped she drew blood. It was Jon, not Jacaerys who curled the length of her hair around his fist and tugged.

They danced on the fine line between pleasure and pain.

The harsh saw of their breathing filled the bedroom as they writhed their barely clothed bodies together. Sansa purposefully didn’t allow herself to think as she shoved down Jon’s black briefs and curled a not-so-gentle hand around his erection, bringing it to her entrance.

Gods take her, the burn and the stretch felt so good!

She dug her fingernails into the muscles that bunched in his back as he began to move in her. He gave her no time to get used to him, instead establishing a punishing rhythm that had her drawing her knees up and clenching her lower body as she began the relentless climb.

The bastard, he knew exactly what he was doing when he made sure to rotate his hips during every downstroke, grinding the base of his cock against her clit. Even after all these years, Jon was still the one who knew her body the best. Sansa couldn’t stop the broken moan that escaped her throat, nor the way she clamped down around his cock, her mind going blank as she instinctively met his every thrust.

“Look at me, sweet girl,” he crooned.

In rebellion, she kept her eyes tightly shut, focused on nothing but the climb. _This is just a fuck, this means nothing, this is just a fuck_ , she chanted in her head even as the sharp, sweet bloom of heat inside her began to engulf her like wildfire.

“Look at me!” A thousand pinpricks of pleasure and pain in her scalp had her eyes blinking partially open at the same time Jon pinned her arms and shoulders to the mattress with half his weight on his forearms. If she’d thought the look in his eyes was intense before,  it was nothing compared to now.

Not nothing, _everything_. 

The tension inside her reached a breaking point and Sansa snapped, toes curling and limbs jerking in both agony and ecstasy. “Oh, oh! Jon- don’t stop pleasedontstop,” she cried inches from his lips, eyes still open but unseeing. She dug her nails deeper into his back, and then his ass. _Fuck me, take me, make me yours_ , she thought.

Maybe she had actually said those words out loud. Jon let out a shuddering moan of his own as he followed her over the edge, their bodies straining inelegantly against one other until every last spasm was spent.

Even now, with her body uncontrollably trembling and Jon’s cock softening inside her, Sansa couldn’t bear to think of either the past or the future. Not with him.

Not even with Jon gently caressing her cheek with his thumb. Not even with him murmuring sweet words against her forehead.  This, the safety she felt right now in his arms- as if all the bad in the world couldn’t get past him? That was an illusion.

 _You don’t love him anymore_ , she told herself.

Even as she thought it, there was another voice, a quieter one, whispering at the back of her head.

 

 _Liar,_ it said.


	5. you stole my cauldron but you can't have my heart (so kiss me maybe) (Jon/Sansa)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Harry Potter AU. Just marshmallow fluff with a smear of pining-type angst. Rated T because teenagers. Title courtesy of Celestina Warbeck, mostly. Look, when it comes to house sortings, there are characters I feel flexible on, and then there are certain characters I Feel Very Strongly About And Will Fight You If You Disagree So Don’t Even Try.

Even the bathrooms in Ravenclaw Tower had an entire wall of windows, half of which were cranked open to let in the faint light of early morning. The cool breeze was a blessing in the heavily humid girls’ bathroom, but it was also a curse because of course Robb had dragged the Gryffindor Quidditch team out onto the pitch at the crack of dawn. Sansa could hear her brother shouting commands, or just plain yelling at his teammates.

(“OI LORAS! YOU WANT TO PREEN, WAIT UNTIL YOU CAN SEE YOUR REFLECTION IN THE SNITCH.” “Greyjoy! There’s a difference between ‘getting it in’ with girls and 'letting the bloody quaffle through the goal’!” “Stone and Snow, tighten your turns! You’re on a broomstick not a horse.” There was some shouting, presumably as Jon tried to restrain Mya from hexing Robb. Sansa resisted the urge to go peek out the window in the direction of the pitch. Gryffindor was playing Hufflepuff next weekend and she knew her brother sorely wanted to beat them. No small feat since their team had Brienne Tarth, Meera Reed, Alysane Mormont, and Edric Dayne.  Arya had, to date, not been able to strongarm her way onto the team, but next year she would be able to try out.

Intellectually, Sansa understood why final exams were held in the spring, shortly before Hogwarts released their students for the summer. At the same time, she hated that the first signs of the spring thaw, when the sun poked through the gray clouds and the flowers began to bloom- all that occurred while she was fervently trying to study for her OWLs. Springtime was the enemy to motivation, she was convinced.

It was also the perfect time to be lovesick.

Which Sansa was resolutely not, thankyouverymuch.

 _It’s only a kiss_ , she chastised herself as she pointed her wand at her hair and murmured a de-frizzing charm before she began separating the strands into sections and twisting them into an elaborate braid. And besides, she really needed to be focusing on her upcoming exams, which were just over two months away, not mooning over Jon Snow. Even if he was a really good kisser. Sansa sighed wistfully.

“You’re doing it again,” Sarella pointed out factually, sounding neither smug nor judgmental. _Of course_ she would have noticed Sansa beginning to daydream about Jon: ever since she had shorn her hair off, the other girl’s morning routine was cut considerably down.

Sansa yanked the last few inches of her hair into the braid, huffing. “Ugh, I told you guys, I can’t seem to stop!” She tied the end off and turned to address the rest of the bathroom’s inhabitants. “I’d almost think I was given a Love Potion.”

“Doubtful,” Missandei said with a furrowed brow. “At least not coming from Jon himself, and the only people who would do such a sneaky thing are more motivated to break you two apart.” _Well, she would know_ , Sansa thought, given that she was friends with a certain white-haired Slytherin in their year who still hadn’t forgiven Jon for turning her down for the Yule Ball two years ago.

“I thought that would make me feel better, but that doesn’t make me feel better.” Sansa sighed and straightened her blue-and-bronze tie. How on earth was she going to make it through Transfiguration with the Gryffindors without staring at Jon the entire time? 

Myrcella timidly held her hand up to get their attention. “I guess I’m the only one who’s confused about why this whole thing is a problem? And since when do you avoid infatuation, Sansa?” Whereas Sansa enjoyed the process of manually braiding her hair, Myrcella managed to keep up with all the latest hair charms from Witch Weekly, keeping her golden locks in artfully spelled curls down her back. She made a valid point- Sansa was usually the one in their circle of friends that was always mooning after someone. 

“Since I got so wrapped up in Harry Hardyng that my grades were slipping even before he dumped me. And besides, I need to do really well on my OWLs, remember? Professor Martell said I have to get a high score in Arithmancy and you know maths has never been my strongest suit.” It didn’t help that Professor Baelish made her skin crawl every time his cold eyes roved over her body or the way he would hover over her shoulder as she was doing a calculation. He’d offered to give her private lessons but all Sansa had been able to remember was the disturbing way he’d purred that she looked so much like her mother way back when she was a first-year, and so she’d lied and said some of her housemates were tutoring her.

All girls nodded sagely; they, too, felt the pressure to do well for the sake of their futures. Oberyn Martell was not only the school’s resident Potions professor, he was their Head of House and surprisingly exacting in his expectations for his students. During career counseling, when Sansa had expressed her interest in working for the International Confederation of Wizards, he had _hm_ ’d and wandered around his office thumbing through sheafs of scrolls before locating something and informing her of precisely which OWLs she would have to take and pass in order to take the NEWT level classes that would qualify her for that particular career field. 

There was nothing like the crushing sense of responsibility to distract one from one’s own hormones. 

Jon Snow was just going to have to keep his lips to himself from now on.


	6. Untitled The Mummy AU snippet (Jon, Arya)

(In which a treasure hunt of sorts is in process in Essos, amongst the recivilized island kingdom of Valyria.)

“Why don’t you sit down?” Gendry asked him. “We could use a fifth.”

“I’m not much for gambling with my money. Just my life,” Jon said dryly. Joffrey snorted disbelievingly, looking like he had just suckled a lemon. 

“Never? What if I was to bet you ǂ500 we get to Argaeria before you?”  

“You’re looking for the Silver City.” Jon stated flatly.

“That we are,” Brienne inclined her head, watching him closely even as she placed her own bet.

“And who says _we_ are?” Jon asked, already knowing the answer. He turned to give Arya a hard stare.

“She does,” all three chorused, pointing at Arya.

She shrugged unrepentantly. “It’s an island, Jonny, we’re all getting off at the same stop instead of continuing onto Halcyraeon.” Damn, when she said it like that, it actually made sense. Still…

“Alright, you’re on.” He told Joffrey. That was money in his life…easy come, easy go.

A demented light entered Joffrey’s eyes. He leaned forward and Jon could practically smell the stench of privilege wafting off of the heavy gel in his hair. “Are you sure you wanna take that bet?” Joffrey challenged.

“Why not? What makes you so sure?”

Joffrey’s chest practically puffed out with smugness. “It pays to have a father who’s a senator and a grandfather who owns the most powerful company in Westeros- my men found a guide for me…someone who’s _actually_ been to Argaeria.” _Well, bugger me with a bloody spear._

Jon spotted the wary looks both Gendry and Brienne shot Joffrey, as well as the ghost of a smile on Arya’s lips and realized Arya was doing just fine fleecing the competition for information.

“Well, carry on with your game, then. Since we’ll be seeing plenty of each other,” he told the other three facetiously.


	7. Fan-atic (Arya, Sansa)

(Modern Arya&Sansa sisterly bonding fic that’s totes like Louise and Tina Belcher)

 

“But I hate them, they’re so stupid!”

Arya’s protests fell on deaf ears, for her father was resolute. She could feel the heat from Sansa’s glare clear across the room. Her older sister let out a huff at the insult to her favorite boy band.

“It’s just a concert, Arya,” Ned pointed out. Another huff from Sansa. “If I can sit through a film with that Arthur Dayne in a wet shirt for your mother, you can handle a concert.” Arya remembered overhearing Robb sniggering with Theon and Jon that the famous action star (who was like, so old, ew!) was on their mother’s ‘pass list’, whatever that was. Maybe that explained the pinched look on her father’s face.

Arya couldn’t wait until Robb left for college so she could have his room. Her and Sansa have never shared well. Especially now that Sansa was fourteen and a freshman in high school with Robb while Arya was only in sixth grade. Her older sister might as well be an _alien,_ as far as she was concerned _._

 

Sansa was looking at her phone and biting her lip. Arya groaned in disgust. “You’re reading fanfiction again, aren’t you?” 

“No!” Sansa had always behaved prim, like she was a lady or something. And now, the lady definitely was protesting too much. 

“Yes you are! I bet you’re reading one of those stories with _sex_ in them,” she accused.

“I do not!” Sansa hissed, glancing towards the other occupants of the minivan with trepidation. They were in the middle seats, with Robb and Jeyne up front and Jon and Theon in the back.

Arya rolled her eyes. “I know your laptop admin password and you never clear your internet history.” She crossed her arms and lifted her chin in victory. Okay, maybe she was being super bratty right now, but Arya had never been able to handle the way their parents acted like Sansa could do no wrong. Even if Arya was actually the one always doing what she wasn’t supposed to. That was her excuse for what came out of her mouth next, knowing Robb, Jon, Theon, and Jeyne were well in earshot.

“You read those nasty stories and then you’re masturbating under the covers when I’m supposed to be taking a shower-”

Sansa’s eyes widened in horror, but their argument was cut short by Robb groaning petulantly: “I don’t need to hear this!” He’d said the same thing when Sansa was yelling at their mother about the specific brand of tampons she wanted, because they were the same ones Margaery Tyrell used.

Theon, however, continued to be a sleazeball of the highest order. “I could stand to hear some more.”

Robb slammed on the brakes, steering the van onto the shoulder of the highway. Cars honked and roared past them, shaking the vehicle as they went. Thick silence reigned in the closed space as he glared back at Theon, who had enough brain cells to blanch and look away. Jon- Arya’s favorite out of all of Robb’s friends- just pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head. 

Arya didn’t hate her sister, not really. And she kind of felt bad when she saw the abject humiliation on Sansa’s face, and the red cheeks. She might not understand it, or particularly like it, but this was the kind of dumb stuff Sansa adored and this concert and those stupid boys were all she’d been talking about for a month now. Arya could be nicer for a day.

“So, who are these poncey gits I’m supposed to stare at for two hours?” Arya finally asked when she noticed her sister flipping through a _TigerBeat_. Might as well get the lowdown on these losers, right? She immediately regretted it when Sansa began gushing and pointing to a page with five steroid-infested boys who had enough gel in their hair to cover half of Westeros. 

“This is Joffrey, obvi,” Sansa pointed to a bleach blond that looked like a smirking rat. “I used to be a Joffanatic, before that leaked video where he kicked a puppy. Now I’m a Trystaniac.” She pointed to another boy with golden brown skin, dark eyes, and curly black hair. Arya hmphed, at least her sister’s taste in boys was improving. It was never the girls Sansa had kissed or had a crush on that were the problem, Arya usually found them tolerable. But the boys…ugh. Just, _ugh_.

Edric was alright, she guessed.

Sansa was still talking. “That’s Grey Worm. He’s from Astapor and he’s very vocal about being asexual, but a lot of people write these really graphic smutfics about him, it’s problematic on _so_ many levels. And this is Loras. He isn’t out-out, but everyone knows he’s gayer than the Reach in springtime.” Robb was choking back laughter at that. Arya frowned.

“Why isn’t he out, practically nobody has a problem with that nowadays?”

Sansa shrugged. “Because the band is primarily targeted at teenage girls and all of the boys have to seem available.” Well, that sucked.

Just then, she noticed the fifth member of the band, whom Sansa had yet to point out. Unlike the exaggerated poses of the others, this boy simply stood there with his hands shoved into his jean pockets. He easily had the biggest muscles,black hair and blue eyes, and a square jaw. Arya felt a peculiar twinge in her lower belly that led her to think, for an awful moment, that she might be getting her first period.

“What about that one?”

“That’s Gendry,” Sansa tilted her head thoughtfully. “People think he’s dumb but I think he’s just quiet and thoughtful. He’s probably the least into the glitz and fame, but he has an amazing voice and instinct for rhythms.” She didn’t have that tone she got when she thought a boy was especially attractive. The fawning kind. Arya wasn’t sure why that was a relief to her, or why the twinge in her stomach had grown into a white-hot surge of…anger?

She wanted to know more. She had to occupy her brain somehow, right? But before she could ask Sansa some questions, Robb was pulling up in front of the Arena.


	8. untilted Wild West Westeros soulmate au (Sansa/Jon)

 

 

Jon gave two raps on the finely polished wooden door, announcing his return to his wife.

“I’m not ready yet!” Her voice carried into the narrow hallway of the train car. Jon bit back a curse, settling his hands on his hips as he turned to stare out the windows at the rapidly moving countryside.  Last night, when the train pulled out of Winterfell after supper, the terrain to the west had been thick with the evergreen trees of the Wolfswood. By dawn of this morning, on the sixth day of their journey, the forests began to rise up the slopes of jagged, snow-capped mountains. They would arrive at Queenscrown in a matter of one hour, he had been informed by the conductor.

The expansion of the Kingdom into the largely wild and lawless Northern Territory had been fraught with danger. There were dozens of different wildling groups scattered throughout that saw the new towns and settlements as an intention to start a war. For the time being, a border had been erected from coast to coast with Fort Black at the center keeping the peace. That didn’t mean there weren’t raids or skirmishes; after all, there was only so much a few hundred men could do when guarding a three hundred mile long wall.

Queenscrown was the nearest town to the border and as such, required a larger contingent of soldiers and lawmen. Who better to take charge of them all than the bastard second son of the King himself? Jon took his orders from his fa- no, _his King_ and went gladly, if rather bitterly. He knew well enough that he was not wanted at court and his stepmother, as well as his half-siblings, were glad to see him depart from King’s Landing.

Well, that would be on account of the wife Jon had found himself (almost quite literally) saddled with.

This wasn’t the King’s decree, the blame for this disaster could be laid entirely at the feet of the Gods, both Old and New. Because Sansa Stark had been cursed with his name on her wrist by her eighteenth nameday. Jon hadn’t thought her name a curse- he knew of the Starks- they were a highly respected noble family in the city and Jon had rather been looking forward to receiving a soulmark. Perhaps he’d thought a soulmate would somehow make up for his loneliness and lack of belonging.

Jon was certain Sansa had been looking forward to meeting her own soulmate, that she had probably been downright ecstatic to discover she was to wed a prince, right up until the moment she actually met him. Jon could remember seeing the disappointment in her eyes, even through the polite smile and the perfect courtesies. Not only did he fall short of her expectations, she was also effectively being sent into exile. It wasn’t that soulmates were legally required to marry…but well, one did not reject the son of the King, even if he were a bastard.

When he went to kiss her to seal their vows, her lips tasted of salt water.

That night, in his chambers, Jon had been fully prepared to blow out the candles and go to sleep without bedding his wife. Only, Sansa had shyly asked, with a small stutter of incredulity, if he wasn’t going to take his rights. Jon hated the idea of taking anything, especially from a woman who didn’t seem receptive to his advances.

 

The sound of wheels rattling over thin carpet shook Jon from his musings and he caught sight of the bellhop making his way down the hallway with a breakfast cart. There was not room for him to pass with Jon standing there. Now, Jon was well aware that the bellboy would be obligated to pause half the day away if the son of the King demanded it, but Jon hated to abuse his station in such a way. “Pardon me,” he murmured before turning the gold-plated handle. It gave in his hands because his wife had thankfully not bothered to lock it today. Ready or not, he was coming in.

Scarcely had Jon closed the door behind him, nodding at the bellhop’s murmured gratitude, than there was a squawk of outrage from the woman standing next to the bed.

“I said I wasn’t ready yet!”

Jon sighed and turned to explain, only to be momentarily struck mute at the sight of his wife- and wasn’t that a thought, that he had a wife now? Sansa Stark (Targaryen, he reminded himself) was still in her underthings; his eyes roved over the white cotton lawn drawers with the frilly lace at the knees, the peek of the matching chemise with short sleeves, and the dusky pink stays that were doing an admirable job supporting her breasts the way he had earlier that morning. Noticing the direction of his stare, Sansa gasped and grabbed the white shirt she’d set out, bringing it around to cover her from the waist down. The half-formed thought floated around in his mind that she was likely very aware that her drawers had a gusset in between the legs.


	9. Pretzel-shaped People (Arya/Trystane/Edric D.)

This would've been in a Ginger Snaps AU (wherein Sansa was bitten by a werewolf)

 

“I think there’s something wrong with my sister,” Arya announced to the ceiling. Her muscles were so pleasantly wrung out, she wished she had a cigarette between her fingers if only for the cliché of the moment. A long male groan vibrated underneath her calves.

“You  _always_  think there’s something wrong with your sister.” Arya stared down to where Trystane Martell lay slumped on his stomach across the foot of the bed. They’d all sort of collapsed straightaway after getting each other off, resulting in a vaguely pretzel-esque puppy pile on top of the covers. She felt, rather than saw Edric shrug; the motion made her head rock from side-to-side.

“Besides, isn’t this the one time of the year you and Sansa get along?” Just the rumble of his voice near her ear made the burn between her thighs tingle from the memory of trying out the new, pale blond beard he’d been sporting lately.

“Well, yes. But she’s acting weird for  _Sansa_ , that’s my point.”

“How you two can be carrying on a conversation is beyond me. I think half my brains emptied in that load,” Trystane complained.

Arya snorted. “You didn’t have any brains to begin with, Martell.” (“ _Nice_!”)

“Weird, how?” Edric prodded her, sounding vaguely interested but still drowsy.

“She’s been really irritable lately. The other day, Jon came by with Robb to help Dad work on the roof, and all he did was say ‘hi’ to Sansa and she nearly bit his head off.”

“Are you sure she isn’t just on-  _the fuck, Ned_! What’re you kicking my leg for?” Trystane batted at Edric’s feet, rolling over onto his back but keeping Arya’s legs hooked over his middle. “Anyways, like I was just saying…sounds like she’s on her period or something.”

This time it was Arya who kicked him off the bed.

“Fat lot of help you two are.”


	10. on a scale from one to ten (Sansa, Arya)

modern Westeros, Broad City AU

 

 

 

“Rate them,” Arya orders her sister when they pause to watch the men playing a pickup game on their way home. Sansa is just single enough and sex-deprived enough to not care that they’re basically ogling the men, most of whom are shirtless and sweaty courtesy of the late summer weather in King’s Landing. 

She and Arya pick a man and each fires off a number. (” _Nine?? There’s no way he’s a nine, no wonder you have shit taste in men!_ ”) It’s not until Arya grunts and points out a tall but slight blond, “Damn, I don’t think that one’s wearing any underwear. Look, you can see the outline, definitely a tenner at least”, that Sansa realizes maybe she and her sister are using completely different rating systems.

“Wait, you’re rating their dick sizes?” She says, more than a little horrified.

Arya gives Sansa her patented ‘duh’ look. “What else would I be rating them on?”

That’s when one of the players, a cute guy with dark curly hair, golden skin, and a shaved chest jogs up to them. “Uh, look, we can hear you and you’re making some of the guys uncomfortable, so…” he trails off.

Red-faced, Sansa starts to drag her sister away, but not before Arya purses her lips and gives the guy a judgmental once-over.

“Definitely a five,” she tells him as a parting shot.

They hear him call out a bit shrilly at their rapidly retreating backs: “I’M A GROW-ER NOT A SHOW-ER!”


	11. What Happens in Dorne...(Robb/Roslin)

Sunlight stabs through her eyelids, interrupting her pleasant and dreamless sleep. Roslin wiggles her nose and pries her eyes open, blinking blearily until the room comes into focus. Why on earth her mouth feels like it’s been stuffed with cotton, or what could possibly be the cause of her throbbing headache, she doesn’t know. She recognizes the general layout and luxurious décor of the Rhoyne Palazzo Hotel and immediately feels too cheap to be sullying the obscenely high thread count sheets currently covering her naked body.

Wait, what?!?

She was in the Water Gardens, a Dornish resort town, for Sansa’s wedding to Arianne Martell, that much she could remember. Arianne’s father was the CEO of Martell Industries, and as such, they could afford to splurge on booking half the hotel for the wedding party and some of its guests. It’d been a lovely ceremony and Roslin had been one of Sansa’s bridesmaids; the two of them had been friends ever since they’d ended up as roommates in that dingy flat in Flea Bottom, having idealized the capitol city for so long.

That friendship had certainly come in handy when Sansa had been sure to have Roslin partnered down the aisle by Robb, the elder Stark brother Roslin’d had a mad crush on during her first two years of college in Riverrun. Before she’d decided that she was going to have to get as far away from her batshit crazy family if she was going to be able to live the kind of life she wanted. It’d been very flattering and extremely validating to have Robb’s eyes on her for half the night, surprised and admiring in the way she’d dreamed of when she was nineteen.

_Robb…_

The name causes something to niggle at the back of her mind. Like much of anything to do with Robb over the past five years, Roslin ignores that particular rabbit hole and smiles as she remembers how happy she had felt to watch Sansa and Arianne together. She could admit she was a tiny bit envious, but after growing up in a fundamentalist community where her father’d had eight wives almost all at once and legions of children and grandchildren, most of whom espoused a very traditionalist view of gender and marriage…perhaps it was a blessing to be independent at the spinsterly age of twenty-four.

After the wedding had come the reception…and several glasses of champagne followed by an excessive amount of rum, amongst other libations. Which would explain the hangover and the temporary amnesia. Roslin recalled dancing with several of Sansa and Arianne’s handsome friends who had been very interested in her. Which had been an altogether peculiar experience for a woman who gone through puberty and the first years of college feeling like a dowdy little mouse.

Clearly, Roslin had gone back to one of their rooms and gotten laid. The thought made her immensely proud- she had always wanted to be, quotem more of a ho, unquote. Feeling like the cat that ate the canary, she turns her head to check out who was responsible for the pleasant ache in her muscles.

The smile drops from her face.

Next to her on the king-sized bed, looking every bit as naked as she, is none other than Robb Stark.

When Roslin remembers to breathe again, she quickly starts to rationalize what had happened. Okay, so she had slept with the one man she’d had a pathetic crush on, who she had accepted would never ever look at her in that way, and who had made her lose her composure so she always seemed to be making a fool of herself in front of him. She can deal with this. Especially if she acts like this is nothing more than a random hookup. Not remarkable in the slightest-

_He hiked one leg higher around his waist, but left the other to curl lower around his thigh and when he thrust upwards, she clenched down on him so hard both of them moaned at the delicious friction. “Better?” His lips along the whorl of her ear made her shiver. “Yes, so much better. Keep going.” And she was left to clutch at his shoulders, to arch her back so her breasts would press against his chest even as he kept her braced against the wall, and clamp her cunt down around the slide of his cock in and out of her as he proceeded to fuck her._

Cheeks flushing and other parts of her body tingling in way she wishes they weren’t considering who was inspiring these physiological reactions, Roslin begins the slow process of extracting herself from the bed without waking Robb up. She makes it as far as her feet planted on the carpet and is about to slide her ass off the mattress when she notices the official-looking piece of white paper sitting on the bedside table, next to the half-full glass of champagne.

Her eyesight is too blurry to make out the lettering at first, so she picks it up and peers closer. The bottom drops out of her world when she reads the elaborate lettering across the top:

* * *

 

**Marriage Certificate**

_Legislature of Greenblood_

_Dominion of Dorne_

This is to certify that the undersigned Justice Harmen Uller did on the 17th day of October 1017 AL join in lawful wedlock Robb Torrhen Stark of Winterfell, Dominion of the North, and Roslin Cynthea Frey of the Crossing, Dominion of the Riverlands with their mutual consent, in the presence of Theon Greyjoy and Dacey Mormont who were witnesses.

* * *

 

 

She even has a shiny gold band around the fourth finger of her left hand. There is a funny ringing echo in her head and Roslin mercifully manages to get off the bed without waking the oaf lying there. Who is her husband. _Mother, Maiden, and Flaming Crone!_ She stares down at his slumbering form, at the rise and fall of his furry chest, the beautifully defined abs and biceps, the dark auburn hair that has long since escaped from the gel he’d slicked on and now laid on the pillow in a cloud, and for a moment contemplates stabbing him in the pecs with her stiletto heels so he could be equally horrified at their predicament.

But as soon as the urge comes over her, it dissipates. She’d gotten drunk last night and married him and had some wild sex, bits of which she is beginning to remember, and the knowledge leaves her feeling terrifyingly vulnerable. She can’t deal with this now. As she quietly plucks her clothes off the floor and pulls them on, Roslin decides that she would be better off grabbing her purse and heading back to her room so she could take a nice, hot shower and build up her defenses with a fresh application of makeup, perfectly coiffed hair, and clean clothes. Then, she would be ready to face Robb.


	12. We Kiss The Dusk Goodnight (Jon/Sansa)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Summary:  
> Ser Jon Stark returns home from the Vale in order to wed the Princess Sansa Targaryen. Naturally, he has to go make an absolute fool of himself.
> 
> From the valar-morekinks prompt: "Jon is a legitimate Stark born to Ned and Cat. Sansa is a Targaryen princess, daughter of the reigning King and Queen of Westeros." Also this commentary because yes: "I can just see Targ!Sansa being utterly unimpressed with the somber Stark boy (bc Jon is angsty and sullen in EVERY universe, lbr."
> 
> This is a discontinued fic, and old enough I cringe at a few things. But, whatever, I'm feeling nostalgic. Sophie dyeing her hair blonde was one of the inspirations for this.

The missive comes via raven to Runestone, informing Ser Jon Stark that it is time for him to return home to Winterfell for his wedding. He gathers up his belongings, loads up his two horses and, his squire Edric Dayne as well as Ghost in tow, makes for the small ship that awaits to take him north from the Vale to White Harbor. His goodbyes to his fellow knights, and to Ser Yohn Royce, are short but full of sentiment.

They have, after all, had years to prepare themselves for this day.  
  
He had come to the Vale as a boy, first as a page then as a squire to Bronze Yohn himself, out of the great respect the man held for Jon's father, Lord Eddard Stark. When Jon set out with his boyish dreams of becoming a knight someday, he'd expected to either continue to serve a Lord or return to the North to take over a small keep and form his own cadet branch of House Stark. He's Robb's twin, the younger by seven minutes (an auspicious sign, according to the Maester who had delivered them).  
  
What Jon had not expected was to, by the age of fifteen, become betrothed to a Princess. His cousin, Sansa Targaryen, no less. Not that he's ever met the girl, though he's heard tell of how sweet she is, how lovely. Jon's not sure how to even _speak_  to a woman like that.  
  
He's not stupid, he knows the King must be worried about some kind of threat if the North is strengthening its ties to the South like this. And not just Jon, but Robb had just this last year wed Roslin Frey, whose father controlled the Twins: enormous bridges that could permit the movement of a large army across the river into the Westerlands if need be.  
  
It takes the better part of eight days to reach White Harbor. Jon hates to force his direwolf to suffer the sea but, as he reasons, he's going to ride the rest of the way to Winterfell rather than take a small barge up the river. The journey only gives him too much time to think.  
  
When he had received the news of his betrothal from both his parents while they were all at the Tourney at Pinkmaiden, he had perhaps expected a daughter from House Manderly or House Mormont. Someone of the North. Not the second daughter of King Rhaegar Targaryen.

The thing Jon remembers most about that moment is the pinched smile on his mother's face, telling him that this betrothal contract displeased her. It's not hard to guess why- many Northmen still considered the second marriage of King Rhaegar to Lyanna Stark, while he was still married to Queen Elia, as a dishonor to the North. Only Lyanna's letter to her father and the then-Prince Rhaegar's usurpation of his father convinced Jon's grandfather, Lord Rickard, to not call his banners. It was too late for his uncle Brandon, who died fighting in Robert Baratheon's ill-advised rebellion. Unfortunately, Lyanna never got a chance to mend ties with her family before she died soon after birthing Sansa.  
  
Given that Jon had been on the path to becoming a knight, it was decided that the two would wed after he was knighted and after Sansa reached her sixteenth year (Queen Elia had insisted).  
  
Robb had written to him soon after the betrothal, telling Jon that he supposed Father wished to make peace with the dead and to mend ties with his niece's family so that she might come to know where her mother came from.  
  
Unlike some of the men of his acquaintance, Jon actually  _wants_  to be married. He's just not sure how one goes about being married to a Princess. Edric's no help; Jon had been eager when he discovered that the boy had met Princess Sansa once as a child. “ _She was tall and she smelled like lemons_ ,” wasn't much to go on.  
  
All the same, Jon thinks about carding his fingers through pale, silken hair and feeling the thick weight of skirts tangling with his legs when he fists his cock at night. Rather guiltily, though, because he doesn't have the faintest clue whether he and Sansa will get on well enough to have a marriage like his parents'. In his letters, Robb speaks of a polite distance that still exists between him and his wife, though they seem to be both positively inclined to one other. For all Jon knows, his bride will have lofty expectations and he will fall short of them all.  
  
The wedding is to be held at Winterfell as a concession to the North and for King Rhaegar to curry the favor of the Northmen. Jon wonders what Princess Sansa will make of Winterfell, of the harsher weather and the lack of opulence. After the wedding, he will travel with his wife and his good-family South for a feast at King's Landing before they finally end their journey at what is to be his new home, Dragonstone.  
  
Jon knows that if this is a strategic marriage, then he's not simply marrying Sansa to be the pretty face at her side. He's a knight, and Dragonstone will likely face threats by sea. Bronze Yohn was not a man in the practice of knighting a squire the moment he reached his age of majority. He expected that any squire he took under his wing would earn his knighthood, and Jon had when they raced to Gulltown's aid as it was besieged by pirates seeking to plunder its wealth from trade with Essos. It was soon after this that Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning himself, came to the Vale with his nephew under the pretense of finding the boy a knight to squire with. To this day Jon suspects Ser Arthur was ordered by King Rhaegar to get his future good-son's measure.

They make good time along the White Knife river, and it'll take them a week and half to make it to Winterfell. Jon finds himself enjoying the experience, breathing a little easier now that he was in the familiar grassy, hilly terrain he remembered as a boy. The skies are more gray and the air has a definite chill to it. He shakes off the tension of his impending nuptials by encouraging his squire to spar with him. Edric has only been with him for two years, but Jon can see the boy's potential. He, like Jon, will someday have obligations to his House, as he is the heir to House Dayne and Starfall.  
  
The last morning before they reach Winterfell, Jon lets Edric sleep in a little longer and heads down to the river so he can bathe. This close to where the Kingsroad bridges over the river, there are more people, mostly smallfolk though he spots a few well-dressed people whose Houses he cannot identify at this distance. Stripping down to naught but his breeches, which he rolls up to the knees, he wades into the water and washes his hair and his torso lightly. The very least he can do is not come before his family smelling like a pigsty.  
  
Jon hears the screaming, and just as his attention focuses on the peasant woman on the opposite bank upriver, he hears a splash. “ _Arron! Oh gods, Arron! Somebody help my babe he cannot swim_!” Her shrill, panicked screams have him following the direction of her unwavering focus until Jon spots the source of the splash- someone has dove into the river and is fighting against the current to reach the spot where the child had sank underneath the water.  
  
He doesn't think, he just acts, plunging himself into the cold water and pulling himself ahead with powerful strokes. He reaches them just as the other rescuer breaks the surface, child in hand. That's when Jon receives the shock of his life as he realizes his fellow rescuer is a woman. She spins around at his approach, gasping for air as the little boy struggles in her hold. Her eyes seem impossibly large and impossibly blue against the fine-boned porcelain skin. Droplets of water cling to her dark eyelashes.  
  
"My lady!" Jon exclaims as he attempts to curl an arm around both the woman and the boy. "Allow me to ferry you back to the riverbank-"  
  
"No, no, there's no need to, Ser," she shakes her head, sinking low enough that her words send water sputtering. "Take the child and I'll follow behind."  
  
Jon could see exactly why that wasn't an option. "Please, your skirts must be weighing you down. It's no good if I make it to shore only to find that you've drowned."  
  
She's tiring and even as brave and impetuous as this woman is, she's got enough sense to not dawdle in making her decision. With a rapid nod, she allows Jon to half embrace her and pull her along as he swims with one arm towards the shore where the boy's mother awaits.  
  
He hears shouting and the sounds of horses galloping. Before he even gets his feet planted in pliant mud, arms are reaching past him to grab ahold of the woman. Jon nearly goes to fight them until he sees the red and black Targaryen sigil on the knights' armor.  
  
Jon stands there feeling completely unmanned, breathing hard from his exertions, and studies the woman being half-carried onto dry land, where she shrugs off her help and hands the crying child to his mother, who just about collapses with relief.  
  
Hair so pale it's almost white? Aye. Eyes that, now he thinks of it, resemble his father's? Aye. Tall enough that he could stare at said eyes straight on? Aye again. Knights and now a Septa fussing around her, calling her 'Princess'?  _Well, shit_.

She turns back to him then, and Jon desperately wishes he wasn't bare-chested. He spots the exact moment she notices his state of undress because her eyes widen perceptibly. Gods knew Jon was using up all his willpower to not glance downwards to where her nipples press against the material of her mauve dress. The knights gathering on the riverbank are glaring at him as if he were a Wildling come to steal away their Princess. She's breathless as she speaks to him.  
  
"Thank you for coming to our aid, Ser..." she trails off expectantly.  
  
"Jon," he says rather stupidly.  
  
"Ser Jon-" her eyebrows scrunch up as she begins to guess exactly who he is.  
  
"Stark."  
  
"Oh! How fortuitous, then. I am Sansa Targaryen." Jon knows there are things he ought to be doing, things one does when they stand before royalty, and also things Jon's Lady Mother instructed him to do when introducing himself to his betrothed. But instead he nods and says:  
  
"I know. I figured that out from the dragon sigils." Could he have sounded any more petulant?  
  
When her smile dims, Jon could kick himself. He's only just met Sansa and now he's mucked it all up.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Sansa knows that all who meet her think her naive or silly. She may have grown more reserved, more steady as she grew older, but she still adores the old stories- the songs about brave knights and their ladies. She also enjoys applying herself to the art of stitching and creating her own dresses, though she makes sure to still patronize the dressmakers in King's Landing- after all, it's her duty as a part of the royal family to help support the local shops. She is a visible face in her second mother, the Queen Elia's charitable endeavors. Yet she is always aware of the ways in which she does not quite belong.  
  
She may be a Princess, but she is the daughter of a King who had two wives at once and she is also the daughter of scandal. There are plenty who whisper behind her back that she ought to be a bastard: Sansa Waters, or even Sansa Blackfyre. Her courtesies are her shield and her camouflage; she never lets them see her hurt. She also makes sure people at court never get so much of an inkling that she dreams of gnashing her teeth and biting into bloody sinew, or that she dreams of scorched earth.  
  
Hence, she is aware that she seems the most improbable Lady of Dragonstone. Rhaenys and Aegon hated the thought of being far from a cosmopolis and their father the King had decided that Dragonstone would no longer be a place for the heir apparents to hide away from the kingdoms they would one day rule. But Sansa, as heir presumptive, could be granted this castle as a part of her dowry. And royal weddings were always about creating political ties, weren't they?  
  
Her home is quite fearsome looking, and that is precisely why she loves it so. The citadel itself is made entirely from black stone, using ancient masonry techniques that have been lost since the Doom. The towers are carved to resemble dragons and the castle is dotted with basilisks, griffins, hellhounds, manticores, and wyverns. Sansa is inordinately fond of this grotesque army of creatures. She loves the heady sense of power she gets and the simple pleasures of demonstrating every day how competently she can run a castle.  
  
In spite of the volcanic nature of the island, the soil is incredibly fertile, and in the past fifteen years, much effort has gone into expanding the village at port below the Dragonmount. It's always damp and dreary, but much of the scent of brimstone and sulfur have faded, replaced by the scent of wet wood and intense flower perfume. Sansa spends hours every week in Aegon's Garden, restoring herself among the blooms. Farming has also been established in past years, creating high enough yield to not only keep Dragonstone flush in food but to help supply the nearby islands, too. Sansa herself has devoted her time here to restoring the dragonglass mines and bringing in smiths who can forge these into blades.  
  
She pays attention to the old stories, and she understands that while much is obscured in their histories, there is always a glimmer of truth to even the most outlandish tales.

She hadn't always understood the warnings, nor the lies in the old stories. She was but two and ten when she was betrothed to the second-born son of Lord Eddard Stark- her uncle. Sansa knows precious little about her mother's family save what she hears second or third-hand. When her father and mother informed her that they intended to seek a betrothal in the North, Sansa was at first eager and then apprehensive. Eager because though Rhaegar and Elia had four years to know Lyanna Stark, her brother would have known her for much longer and would have stories that built her first mother into something more than a barely tangible wisp of memory.

Or maybe she expects too much.

Apprehensive because she knows well enough that the North never accepted Lyanna's choice. And even as the royal entourage made their journey up into the Neck, she fears their condemnation. Sansa hardly wants to admit how such a rejection would crush her.

But what is a wedding without a groom? Ser Jon Stark.  _Ser...Jon...Stark..._

When Sansa had learned that her betrothed was in training to become a knight, it had been like all her girlish fantasies had come true. Her father had passed on the reports of his exploits- against the mountain clans (with appropriately barbaric names like the Burned Men, the Painted Dogs, and the Sons of the Mist) and how instrumental he was in breaking the siege of Gulltown. When news reached them that Bronze Yohn Royce had _finally_  seen fit to knight him, Sansa knew the wedding preparations would begin in earnest.

No sooner had Ser Arthur Dayne returned from the Vale than he entered his quarters to find Sansa perched on a chair, her sworn shield Lady Brienne of Tarth at her back, an expectant look on her face.

“Princess,” he had groused, knowing full well what she was there for.

“The servants will bring water for your bath shortly, just as soon as you tell me  _everything_  about Ser Jon,” she had informed him. Sansa was a harsh negotiator, but she always believed herself being perfectly fair.

“Well, he's pretty, I'll grant him that. I know you like those sorts,” Ser Arthur had teased her with that nugget of knowledge. Not that Sansa would admit to caring about the state of her betrothed's prettiness. In private, however...

“And...?”

“...And he's an unorthodox leader. I learned that he ended the raids on Heart's Home by actually sitting down and talking face-to-face with the Painted Dogs. I suppose that's the Northman in him.” As if acknowledging that he wasn't giving Sansa what she wanted, he had finally sighed and admitted: “he'll make a fine husband to you, lass, if my word matters for anything.”

“It does, Ser Arthur, thank you!” Sansa had thrown her arms around him, plate armor and all while the man awkwardly patted her head, careful not to ruin the coif.

“Aye, aye. I left my nephew as his squire, didn't I?” he rumbled into her hair. “He's much like his lord father, though more imaginative if less wise. The King sees nothing worth halting the wedding proceedings.”

 

Now here Sansa stands, less than twelve leagues from Winterfell, soaking wet in front of her knight, receiving a preview of just how...virile...he is without a tunic on. She is doing a great job ignoring the way his breeches cling to his muscular thighs. Perhaps she would be more overcome if Ser Jon weren't  _scowling_  at her. 

That might be exaggerating things a bit, she knows. But at the very least Ser Jon has a glum pout on his face.

When she had imagined meeting her betrothed, Sansa had pictured him being smooth and freely chivalrous like Ser Loras or some of the knights of her acquaintance. But then again, maybe she simply does not know what knights are like when not putting forth their dutiful guises. The gods knew, Sansa had met plenty of people who hid away their rude intentions.

It occurs to Sansa, not for the first time, that maybe Ser Jon does not want to be wed to her, or betrothed at all...that perhaps he blames her for having to leave the Vale or whatever life he might have hoped to live in the North. Heart pounding with faint fear and cheeks flushing, she answers him: "Yes, I suppose it was rather obvious, though perhaps you might consider yourself lucky that you only had even odds of me being your betrothed and not my sister the Princess Rhaenys, who I assure you does not suffer knights that do not follow proper procedure when greeting a princess." She does not scold him with an imperious tone of voice, but she does not want to allow Ser Jon to think she will cower from his displeasure their entire marriage.

Sansa can see from Ser Jon's chagrined expression that her rebuke has had the desired effect.  His eyes are honest and revealing and when they close with shame, Sansa is struck by his eyelashes, the length and shade of them that match the dark brown of his brows and beard (as well as the hair that covers his chest and abdomen). Ser Arthur had been right- Jon Stark  _was_  pretty- even with the ragged red scar that runs from his forehead over his right temple. To Sansa, it lends him a rugged sort of handsomeness. And that hair! It is unbound and falls to the length of his nape, curling much more heavily now that he is out of the water-

"I do! I-" his eyes flit warily to the men milling about behind her. "Speaking plainly, Princess, I've never been any good at talking to women. You can ask my mother and brother- they rather despair for me," he tells her self-deprecatingly. 

Sansa tries but fails to hide a smile with pursed lips. Perhaps she would take pity on her poor betrothed. "Come, I am sure my family would love to meet the man who valiantly saved their Princess from drowning before her wedding day, for which they have traveled all these leagues."

Ser Jon nods and begins to gingerly step out of the muddy riverbank, following slightly behind and to the side of her. "Might I trouble you for a blanket as well? My squire is on the opposite bank, but he will meet us at the bridge with the rest of our things, I am sure."

Sansa has half a mind to deny him, to tease him further (Uncle Oberyn would certainly appreciate the sight of Ser Jon's sculpted form) but she remembers how anxious she is for her Northern family to accept her and reasons that Ser Jon might be equally anxious that his good-family...who are the rulers of Westeros...have a good first impression of him. 

"Of course." Spying a familiar knight nearby, Sansa calls out to him. "Ser Daemon! Might I trouble you for something to cover my betrothed? I'm to take Ser Jon before my family."

Ser Daemon Sand pauses to study the man next to her before looking over to her and chuckling, dimples appearing to the right of his mouth. "Your Uncle was right, Princess- life is never dull in your presence." Sansa can do naught but grin in reply. 

Before long, Ser Jon (when will she feel comfortable enough to be more familiar with the man who will bed her four days hence?) is covered in a spare tunic Ser Daemon insisted he wear and Sansa spies her family clustered some distance up the road, surrounded by Kingsguard and looking worried as they mill around in front of the wheelhouse that had transported Queen Elia and Princess Rhaenys as well as Sansa herself. 

"Mother! Father!" Sansa calls out, knowing they would want to first know she is indeed alright. Elia's dark head whips around, and Sansa spots the heavy relief in her eyes before she is flinging herself past the Kingsguard. Sansa readily accepts her second mother's embrace. She is not oblivious to the complicated emotions Elia has had towards Rhaegar taking a second wife, but she is immensely grateful that Elia had looked upon her as a babe and loved her rather than spurning her. 

For such a tiny thing, Elia hugs her strongly and Sansa melts into the hold, regretting that she must be soiling the Queen's fine dress. "Mother, it is all right, I am well.  _Ser Jon Stark_  came to my aid." This is, she thinks, the perfect deflection. Perhaps her mother and father will not scold her for how freely and rashly she gives her help if they are paying more attention to the man she is to wed.

"Oh! The gods were indeed looking out for you!" Poor Ser Jon looks utterly discomfited when Elia cups his face in between her palms and tugs him down for a grateful kiss to his cheek. Sansa bites back a giggle and grips her blanket tighter around her shoulders. "I'm surprised you weren't called back home earlier, but I suppose you had duties to discharge in the Vale before you could take your leave," her mother chatters on, all but dragging Ser Jon by the elbow towards where her father stands waiting patiently. Aegon and Rhaenys are having one of their private conversations, as per usual, seemingly in a world of their own making. She spies Uncle Oberyn to the back of the carriage, smirking at the whole display as he bites rather ferociously into an apple.

Sansa is thankful for her uncle's presence, for he is her secret-keeper and the one person she trusts above all else. She shoots him a purposeful look, willing him to behave but only gets a wink in return. The King stands tall to their approach and before Sansa can say anything, Ser Jon is kneeling before his liege and very clearly declaring, "Your Grace." 

At least he's not completely uncouth. 

"Rise, Ser Jon," her father announces with an upturned palm. Sansa spots the hint of amusement in his eyes. But there is an intensity there that also frightens her. "I am informed that my daughter plunged into a river to save a drowning child, and that by some fortune, you were the very person to swim out and assist her?"

Ser Jon rises and faces the King with a carefully guarded confidence writ into his very bearing. "Aye, Your Grace. I heard the mother's distress and sought to help however I could. It was...something of a surprise to discover that my intended had done the same."

Sansa flushes when Father's attention swings onto her. "Aye, my daughter tends to rush headfirst into danger when it means saving the downtrodden." Sansa squares her chin defiantly at her father, refusing to be cowed. Never mind what happened that one time her kind heart got her hurt and...and...she puts it all out of mind. That is neither here nor now. King Rhaegar continues, "but for the Gods to bring you here at this very moment tells me that these attempts-mine and your Lord father's- to mend the ties between the crown and the North are indeed meant to be."

Jon nods to affirm King Rhaegar's claims. "My father will likely agree."

Sansa feels some of the tension in her limbs abate, and she realizes that all the while, she's been carefully holding her breath in the hopes that this first meeting would go well. And it has. She feels half drunk on air as she grins at Ser Jon and her father. King Rhaegar inclines his head. "You will, of course, travel the rest of the way with us. Though we will allow you to meet your family ahead of the royal entourage. Your mother must, of course, have the pleasure of seeing her son returned before she has to greet her guests."

Her father very clearly understands the finesse he must employ in gaining the loyalty and goodwill of the North, and that warms her heart. Her mother curls an arm around her own and Sansa just knows that she is about to be spirited back into the wheelhouse for an interrogation. Jon bows ever so slightly.

"If Your Grace would permit, I spy Ser Arthur in the distance and if you could spare another horse, I would head around the bridge with him so that we might meet my squire, his nephew, and escort my belongings to the royal entourage."

"Granted," Father tells Jon, but before Sansa can say anything more (and shouldn't she get some authority in interacting with her own betrothed?) she is being all but dragged towards the carriage. She does, however, manage to share a look with Jon before she climbs into it: a look replete with sweet promise. Jon, on the other hand, just looks bewildered. That, Sansa finds vexing.  Is her marriage to be full of unbridgeable vacuums? 

Mother, Aegon, and Rhaenys pile into the carriage behind Sansa, Oberyn closing the door with a look that promises, ' _Later'._

Facing her mother and siblings, Sansa swallows hard and gathers every bit of poise she has even as sodden wet as she is. Elia's dark eyes twinkle in counterpart to Aegon's mirth. Rhaenys, as always, carefully betrays nothing as she tugs off her silken gloves. Sansa does not take her sister's attitude as an insult. In spite of Elia's warmth towards her adopted daughter, Rhaenys had taken the scandal of her father's second wife personally. She was neither cold nor warm towards Rhaegar and Sansa. There are moments when it is clear Rhaenys wants to melt her own armaments and be kind to her little sister, but it seems she needs her form of armor as much as Sansa does hers. 

"Tell me, sister," Rhaenys begins, slapping her gloves against a bared palm. "What is it like to meet one's betrothed? You have, after all, gotten such a  _revealing_  glimpse." Her brother and sister share a sardonic look that their Queen Mother carefully ignores. 

Rhaenys favored her mother heavily in looks whereas Aegon favored their father, the difference being his faintly olive complexion. When Sansa had been old enough to realize that brother-sister marriages were seen as abhorrent by the rest of the Seven Kingdoms (and the Riverlands, _nobody_ ever remembers the Riverlands), she had attempted to look at her siblings with new eyes. What she concluded was this: Rhaenys and Aegon had always understood what lay in store for them, and that was why they were thick as thieves. They matched each other and functioned much as a couple must- with their own laws and histories that none but them could understand. Rhaenys, Sansa suspected, preferred her own gender and indulging that posed no threat to the line of succession. Aegon likely had his own blanket permission to covertly engage with women outside of his marriage. But her siblings see their royal duty as simply that- another extension of their familial relationship. From the way Rhaenys avoided food lately and the faint bump beneath her gowns, they had succeeded. 

They have their agreements. Sansa does not think she would have found half as much if it were her that had wed Aegon. And certainly her sister may not have found such an understanding husband elsewhere. 

"It  _is_  strange, I had expected to meet Ser Jon in the keep of his home. Dry. I suppose it bodes well that we have the same instincts," she babbles, toying with her interlocking fingers. "Though he does seem less...effulgent...than I had envisioned." The admission hangs heavy inside the carriage. 

Against expectations, it is Queen Elia who snorts and raises her eyebrow at Sansa. "Oh, little moon, you two are but strangers still. You must give Ser Jon the benefit of time and let go of certain expectations. There is no other way around this." 

Sansa nods, seeing the wisdom in her mother's words. Still, her fingers toy with the ends of her still damp braid. Then a thought occurs to her. "Can I not at least change my gowns and fix my hair before we approach Winterfell? I  _shan't_  meet my good-family looking like this!"

She clenches her jaw and stares mutinously at her family, ignoring the way Rhaenys rolls her eyes and mutters, " _the little moon is overwrought this morn_."

In the end, Aegon begs out of the carriage so that Sansa's mother and sister can redress her in a gown passed down from the trunk- one of the gowns sent to her by her good-mother so that she might be warmly attired for the colder North. Elia carefully combs out Sansa's long, platinum locks into a more sensible braid reminiscent of the North rather than the South. 

"There," she whispers a bit sadly. "Every bit as ferocious as a lady wolf."

Sansa hopes so.

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

  


Home is a welcome sight as Jon gallops into the courtyard of Winterfell, having left Prince Oberyn and Ser Arthur to wait on the Targaryen retinue. Both men had wanted to give him some privacy as he was reunited with his own family before they were besieged by the royals. The grind of travel, which had worn Edric down over the past fortnight, melts away and the boy is beaming from ear to ear by the time he realized their journey was nearly over. Ghost, however, goes bounding ahead, probably to reunite with his direwolf siblings.

Jon has seen his family only occasionally over the years, and now as he takes them in, they look familiar yet so utterly foreign. Bran and Arya remember him well enough to rush into his arms the moment he dismounts from his horse, barely having enough time to hand the reins over to Edric before he scoops his younger siblings up into a bear hug. Jon doesn't even have to look up to know his mother is probably grimacing at her only daughter's lack of feminine decorum. His youngest brother, Rickon, who had been born after Jon left for the Vale, is a complete stranger who stands next to Catelyn, staring warily at the brother he's never known.

Robb, his twin, looks more strongly like their mother where Jon resembles their father. Not that it had ever made a difference because Jon knows his brother's heart better than any in the wide world just as Robb likewise knows his. But now Robb is married and Jon wonders how much this will change.

“Never thought I'd see your ugly face again,” Robb drawls as Jon sets Bran and Arya down and steps up to him. Robb looks relaxed where the rest of his family is brimming with excitement. Jon doesn't take any exception to his twin's words- this is an old jape they've thrown at each other a hundred times. He deadpans right back:

“Well I'm prettier than you, so what does that make you?”

Robb's bark of laughter shatters the relative silence of the courtyard, startling even the tiny woman standing next to him, with the long, nut-brown hair falling over her shoulder in a braid and large brown eyes.

“Now you can finally meet my wife, Roslin Stark,” Robb says, finally realizing he ought to introduce her.

“Well met, sister.” He bows just as slightly as Roslin curtsies.

“I'm glad to finally meet you, Ser Jon.”

Robb clasps shoulders with him before lightly shoving Jon down the line to where their mother awaits, teary-eyed, to receive a tight hug and a kiss to her cheek. “Welcome home, my boy.” He tries to introduce himself to Rickon, only to get a slight jerk of the younger boy's chin in response. Alright then.

His father, who has never shied away from being quietly demonstrative with affection, claps Jon on the shoulder and says, “It does me proud to see you attain what you've been working hard towards all these years.”

“Thank you, Father.” The earnest praise leaves him feeling strangely humbled.

Before any further conversation can take place, Catelyn spots the two men who had rode in behind Jon and Edric. “Jon,” she begins, frowning as she tries to discern the sigils on the banners. “Why are two of the King's bannermen riding with you?”

“Ah, that.” Jon runs a gloved hand through the curly mass on top of his head, understandably reluctant to tell his family what had happened earlier that day. At least he'd changed back into his own tunic and leathers so his mother wouldn't despair for her son's manners. “They've come ahead of the royal entourage, only a hour behind me now. I met up with them near the bridge...there was an incident.”

“ _What_...sort of incident?” His father asks tersely, Lord Stark coming through much more clearly in his bearing. Jon hates that his parents probably have been worrying themselves sick about the King and Queen coming all the way up to the North, about confronting the past.

“It was but a child- one of the smallfolk- who got away from his mother and fell into the river. He would have drowned if not for the Princess Sansa swimming to his rescue. I...helped.”

“Helped,  _how_?” He can just see the wheels turning in his mother's head, running through every possible scenario that would bring embarrassment upon their family.

“I saw their plight and swam in after them, helping them back to the other riverbank.” He's resolutely trying not to picture how Princess Sansa looked, standing there with her hair and dress soaked through, looking no less regal than if she were standing in the throne room at King's Landing. Several feet off to his side, Jon can make out Robb frowning suspiciously at him. The downside of having a twin who could practically read his thoughts.

Catelyn closes her eyes as if she's about to ask the Mother for fortitude. “Please tell me this caused no trouble with the King and Queen.” Jon rushes to reassure her.

“ _No_. No, they were grateful and asked me to ride with them for the rest of the way. I talked at length with Ser Arthur Dayne and Prince Oberyn.”

Jon spots the surprise on his mother's face, and the twitch of her mouth at the latter's name. “I wouldn't have thought anyone from House Martell would come for Princess Sansa's wedding.” What goes unspoken is: Why would the Martells care about the child of the woman who humiliated their sister, the Queen?

He loves his mother dearly, but he understands that Catelyn very much sees Rhaegar and Lyanna's choice, and Sansa's existence, as something that dishonored the Starks, Martells,  _and_  Targaryens. If she'd been faced with her own husband's bastard, Jon knows with certainty that his mother would not have tolerated their presence around her true-born family.

“Princess Sansa may not be his blood, but Prince Oberyn very much sees her as his family,” Jon corrects her. “He spoke of her as a beloved niece.”

Sensing that his presence was no longer strictly necessary for this conversation, Ned nods at the two of them and heads towards the gate to give orders that the Targaryen bannermen be seen to. Robb steps up to them, Roslin ushering Arya and Bran away amid their loud protests.

“Tell me, brother, is your bride as lovely as the stories say, or should we steel ourselves?” Robb wriggles his eyebrows suggestively while Jon lets out an exasperated sigh.

“Oh, Robb! Honestly!” Catelyn lightly smacks his arm in exasperation.

Robb backs up a step defensively. “You can't expect me not to rib my brother days before his wedding, or to at least add a little levity to the situation. You know how he takes everything so seriously.” He exaggerates the last few words before winding an arm around Jon's shoulder. Jon does the same in return and Catelyn, sensing that her sons are about to rush off, asks what she deems the most important question.

“At least tell me your first impression of her.”

He racks his brain, stammering as he tries to come up with something intelligent. But all he can do is be honest. “She's beautiful. The only reason she's rash is because she has a kind heart and wants to help people. I may have insulted her or disappointed her, Mother. Made her think I was unhappy with her and this wedding though I didn't mean to.”

“Oh, Jon.”

Robb's steady weight against his body anchors him in the face of his mother's dismay. “I don't know what to do to fix this.”

“Well, you never did have any luck talking to women,” Robb points out, matter-of-fact. That was true- he may not be a virgin, but he had frequently managed to make a fool out of himself trying to make his interest known to a pretty girl.

Catelyn reaches up and rubs a comforting palm against his cheek, half-roughened with a beard, and her eyes soften. “You two will simply have to sit down and speak together. We are hardly going to keep you separate before the wedding. To come to know each other's heart can only come with time and effort.”

Motherly wisdom, from years of experience.

“Yes, Mother.”

“Now, off with you two. At least bring him back not smelling of river water,” she orders Robb.

“As you command, Mother!” With that, he sets off, shoulder-to-shoulder with his brother as they head for Jon's old room, where he sorely hopes a bath awaits. He doesn't even need the water to be warm so long as he can look better than a drowned rat by the time Sansa arrives in the courtyard.

 

 

 

Scarcely has an hour passed than he's lining up with his family as the fanfare sounds, announcing the arrival of the King and Queen. Even Arya is minding her manners and hasn't completely undone her hair or dress. Standing just off to the side, in front of his family, Jon is afforded a close look of everyone's reactions. King Rhaegar dismounts, as does Ser Arthur and Prince Oberyn and numerous men who had accompanied them. Behind him, the wheelhouse comes to a stop and a footman hops down to open the door and escort first Queen Elia, then Prince Aegon exits in order to assist Princess Rhaenys and finally Princess Sansa down the steps.

She may not have had access to a bathing tub, but it's clear that Sansa had done whatever she could to rid herself of the river, having changed into a new gown and fixed her hair into a fairly complex Southron style. This dress is a darker shade than can rightly be called lavender and cut higher in the neckline, a nod to the more conservative Northern style. He thinks it only serves to accentuate her elegant neck and the paleness of her hair as well as complement her eyes.

Jon is startled out of his musings by King Rhaegar addressing him, and it's only now he realizes he had been staring at Sansa for so long he had failed to notice it was his cue to introduce his family.

The King pays polite attention to Bran and Arya, gives his congratulations to Robb and a rather starstruck Roslin, and Jon nearly smiles when he sees that Catelyn is a bit overcome by the King's good charm. The true test is when Rhaegar and his father grip forearms and exchange several sentences full of tense respect. Queen Elia, who had stood next to her husband while the introductions were made, teases little Rickon with a genuine smile before greeting Lady Catelyn warmly. Aegon and Rhaenys stand back, nodding as they are introduced by their mother. Jon suspects everyone can tell Rhaenys is turning on her politesse, though Aegon comes across a bit more personable, strolling over to chat up Robb about this and that.

Deciding to grasp the bull by the horns, so to speak, and show some of the initiative he'd used when he helped break the siege on Gulltown, Jon steps over to where Sansa stands biting her lip uncertainly as she waits her turn. “Princess,” he says, offering her his hand, which she takes with a grateful look.

Her skin is soft against his roughened fingers as Jon leads her over to his younger siblings. “My younger brother and sister, Bran and Arya,” he intones, winking at the latter as she affects a shaky curtsy, scowling all the while. His sister and the Princess are but two years apart in age, yet Sansa seems leagues taller, which is downright comical. Bran, he realizes now, has a more courtly air about him as he bows before Sansa.

“Welcome to Winterfell, Princess, I hope you find our home to your liking.”

She dips slightly, smiling sweetly. “I already do. I've always wanted to see the home where my blood mother grew up.”

Next he introduces her to Roslin, to whom Sansa reaches out in order to grasp the more petite woman's hands. “You and I will understand being a stranger in new lands most of all, I think.” Roslin gives her a grateful smile and a murmur of assent.

Robb may have teased Jon earlier, but he knew well how to conduct himself. He bows to Sansa's curtsy. “Princess.”

Then it's time to introduce Rickon, his mother and father. Her fingers clench against his and Jon marvels at the sense of her trusting him with her anxiety. “My youngest brother, Rickon.” Sansa gives him a nervous smile before facing Catelyn.

“My mother, Lady Stark.” 

As the host, Catelyn does not have to curtsy, and she does not. But Jon can tell his mother's smile is genuine as she regards her future good-daughter, having scrutinized her these past few minutes. He suspects, from the pain in his hand, that it is Catelyn's approval Sansa seeks the most. 

"I expect you're relieved to have your long journey over at last," his mother murmurs. That, Jon knows, is a statement layered with more than one meaning and set up to be a small test. He shoots his mother a warning look, which she determinedly ignores, her attention wholly on Sansa.

"It's worth it, Lady Stark, to finally see your home and meet your lovely family," Sansa tells Catelyn with a shy smile. Her hand flies suddenly from his to grip his mother's own, the impulsive gesture surprising Catelyn so completely it shows on her face before she smiles again, this time more widely. 

It's his father who steps in to answer for his mother. If Ned Stark was somewhat demonstrative with those who were close to him, it was an utter shock to see him do the same to a complete stranger. He brushes a hand over the back of Sansa's head, something Jon has only seen him do to Arya and there is the faint sheen of tears in his eyes as he beholds his niece. 

"No, this is your home, Sansa, and this is your family, too. It gladdens me to see some of my sister in you."

Jon feels the sentiment like a punch to the chest even before he turns and sees how his father's words shatter Sansa's composure. Her face contorts, eyes appearing all the more luminescent thanks to the tears threatening to spill forth. Her mouth opens a fraction, twists, but it's not until she can duck her face down and collect herself that she can form a response. 

"I am flattered, Uncle."

 

 

 

 

The following hours are a whirlwind of getting the royal family and their retinue settled as well as readying Winterfell for the small welcoming feast they would be having that evening. Jon dons the dark blue doublet his mother had made for him, which surprisingly fits especially since he is not as tall as Robb but thicker in the torso, too. He makes sure to pull his hair back neatly with a leather tie and properly trim his beard. He's been told often enough that without it, he looks like a pretty boy.

Jon doesn't know why he didn't expect it, but when he enters the Great Hall, it becomes rapidly obvious he's expected to sit next to Sansa at the table in front of the one on the high dais that will, of course, seat Lord and Lady Stark and the King and Queen.

The hall is over halfway full when Aegon and Rhaenys stroll in, followed by Sansa, who is being escorted by her uncle. Jon immediately suspects that his mother had colluded with someone- the Queen, perhaps- to make sure he and Sansa matched, for she is wearing a lovely blue dress several shades brighter than his own doublet.

“Have fun, you two kids. Don't do anything I wouldn't do,” Oberyn imparts with a wink before sauntering down to one of the lower tables in front of them where Ser Rodrik Cassel sits next to Lady Brienne.

If Jon thought he would have to suffer awkward silences with Sansa, he was mistaken, for once their siblings got going, it was impossible to manage to spare a word towards one other. He tries not to even turn and look at her, not wanting to seem queer by gawking at her, so the most he sees of her during the first courses is the sleeve of her dress when she reaches across the table for her cup.

Her dress has a darker brocade that he can now make out- patterned like cracks in dry sand and she smells nice, like lavender, which he can smell now that they aren't in the middle of a river. Being this close has created a frisson of awareness of the proximity of their bodies. When their hands meet reaching for the same trencher, Jon's eyes dart over to meet hers and they both duck away, blushing. “You go first, Princess.”

“No,  _you_  go first.”

“How about I serve you and then serve myself?” Jon negotiates, to a grateful nod from Sansa.

“You'll be saving me the ignominy of dropping it and spilling food everywhere,” she admits.

Jon catches both Robb and Arya staring slack-jawed at them- the first looking positively gleeful and the latter looking downright horrified- and flushes even further before hurrying to serve Sansa then himself.

Jon couldn't have told you even half of what he'd said during the feast, but once it begins to wind down, he catches his mother at the high table, staring meaningfully at him and jerking her chin in the direction of the doors. Surely enough, Sansa is dabbing at the corner of her mouth with her napkin before placing it on the table and pushing her chair out.

“Pardon me, Ser, but it's been a long journey and I can think of nothing else but my bed.”

Ah, right. Pushing his own chair back, Jon stands up. “Allow me to escort you, then.”

(He's not sure if it's his imagination, but he almost thinks he feels every set of eyes in the Great Hall on the pair of them as they exit.)

“I hope you aren't planning on escorting me directly to my bed,” Sansa tells him after a minute of silence as they make their way up the stairs. The cheekiness of the comment takes him by surprise and Jon can't help the chortle that escapes his throat, his entire torso shaking with the force of it. Even Sansa lets out a giggle, softening her face and making her even lovelier. Perhaps this is just the thing to add some frivolity into what is already an overly formal experience.

“No,” Jon tells her one their laughter dies down. “I wouldn't dream of scandalizing your Septa like that. In fact, I think here at the top of the stairs is the perfect place to drop you off.”

Sansa stares down the corridor, lit by torches, biting her lips as she deliberates something with herself. “I have a gift for you. Wait here.” And with that command, she's off before Jon can form the words to tell her it's not necessary.

He's left waiting at the top of the stairs like an idiot, thankful that nobody else has thought to come this way and see him like this. Fortunately, Sansa soon comes darting back down the hall, her skirts billowing out around her. She seems a bit hesitant at first before holding out a folded piece of cloth.

“You'll probably think it's silly, but after my father informed me of the betrothal, and that you were a squire, I started working on this.” Jon takes the cloth and unfolds it. It's a lady's favor. Sansa had embroidered an incredibly detailed blue filigree around the border that was decorated with the occasional black crow and in the center was a blue and gray wolf whose throat curved into a red-tipped weirwood as if the wolf were howling at it. A warm, utterly foreign emotion bubbles up in Jon.

“It's perfect. Thank you, Sansa.” His throat is tight. “But why would you start on this before Ser Yohn knighted me?”

She gives the barest of shrugs, an enigmatic smile on her lips. “Maybe I believed you would earn it. Good night,” she bids him.

“Good night, Princess.” Jon watches her turn and sashay down the hallway towards her room. 

 

It smells like her. The favor.  Jon holds it against his face so he can breathe in her scent as he fists his cock later that night, straining sore muscles towards a hasty release.  _Gods, but she was sweet._

 

 

 

Morning dawns and Jon remembers that today he is expected to take Sansa for a tour around the castle and its grounds to distract her while nearly everyone else busies themselves with preparations for most of the Northern houses to arrive by tomorrow evening. He eats a quick breakfast before the Targaryens have awakened, though he shares his meal with a frighteningly alert Prince Oberyn who mentions his plans to take a quick look in Winterfell's library.

Afterwards, he heads back to his room, fully intending to pace back and forth until he figures out what in the Seven Kingdoms he's going to talk to Sansa about. He really needn't have worried so much, because Robb obviously knew Jon's mind and barges in, their siblings trailing after him. Even Rickon makes an appearance, Shaggydog wandering in behind him.

“Worried, brother?” Robb asks him facetiously, sprawling on top of one of the chairs in Jon's chambers. Jon groans in response. “I'll take that as an aye, then.”

“If you don't have anything helpful to say, then leave,” he snaps at them, not in the mood to be the butt of their jokes.

“You know what you should do? You should ask her about her favorite flower or favorite dessert,” Robb supplies. At Jon's raised eyebrow, he explains: “So you know what to bring her when you piss her off.”

Arya, who had torn off a piece of blank parchment on Jon's table and wadded it up so she could aim it at the hearth, shrugs derisively. “I don't know why you're so worried. Just get her to talk about her favorite stitch or something. She'll probably prattle on for hours about that stuff.” Jon doesn't have the heart to tell her not to be so hard on Sansa. At four and ten, Arya is old enough for a betrothal and lashing out at others has always been her preferred defense mechanism.

Bran pipes up then from his spot near the window. “How about you make sure to reassure her that you want to be a good husband?” Jon pauses mid-pacing and, like Robb, turns to stare dumbstruck at his younger brother.

“When did you get so wise? I could have sworn yesterday you were five and snapping your bow on the first try.” Robb's voice has the strains of incredulity.

Bran turns petulant then. “I was eight and it was just the one time!”

“ _I_ never broke my bows,” Arya crows triumphantly.

“ _We know, Arya_ ,” Four male voices chorus, which only makes her lose her patience.

“Fine! Be soppy all you want, I'm going to go beat up someone in the training yard.” She stomps out in a huff then. Jon is startled to turn around only to see Rickon. Jon hadn't even heard him move across the room but there he is, staring earnestly up at him.

“Tell her she smells nice and that she has a pretty name,” he says. With a careless shrug, Rickon heads towards the door, Shaggydog rising from his perch in the corner to amble after him. Behind Jon, Robb's voice breaks the thick silence of the room.

“I really could have sworn that yesterday _he_ was five and sleeping in the nursery.”

 

 

 

 

Mid-morning finds Jon escorting Sansa around the grounds, ostensibly to get to know his soon-to-be bride better, though he's not sure how they're going to do that when they're just talking about the weather. Curiously, rather than place her hand over his own, she has chosen to curl her hand around his bicep through the material of his tunic, and somehow it feels like the most seductive thing a woman has ever done to him.

He shoots a quick, guilty glance backwards to where Septa Fasana trails serenely along twenty-five paces behind them. He truly hopes she couldn't discern the nature of his thoughts.

During an awkward segue outside the Glass House where neither of them can think of anything more to say about growing vegetables, Jon finds himself recalling Rickon's simple advice. “Sansa is a lovely name. There was once a Sansa Stark who married-”

“Jonnel.” Jon is sure his astonishment shows on his face because Sansa ducks her chin down and tries to hide her embarrassment. “I may have researched the history of House Stark once or twice when I was younger.”

“Aye, it was Jonnel. Who was half-brother to Sansa's father. A bit odd, though the Starks are no stranger to marriages between cousins.” Jon knows immediately from the way Sansa's face shutters that it had been the wrong thing to say.

“And my family is no stranger to marriages between siblings.” The hand that had been at his bicep falls down to his forearm and Jon mourns the loss.

“I did not mean-” He begins to explain, but she dismisses him with a shake of her head.

“I know you did not. It's a peculiar topic, I'm aware.” Sansa nearly startles him when she bursts out with a non sequitur: “Lady Brienne has been disciplining the men who were supposed to be guarding me yesterday, which has left me feeling rather guilty. From what I gather, her idea of discipline is quite grueling.”

Jon highly doubts Lady Brienne would have been allowed as Sansa's sworn shield if the King weren't convinced she would take her duty absolutely seriously. “Perhaps she simply wants to make sure that your guard is always with you even when the situation doesn't involve a drowning child?”

“You're right,” Sansa accedes. “Though, I am sure you and Lady Brienne will have plenty to debate at Dragonstone.”

They enter through a side door, which Jon pauses next to in order to allow the Septa to enter. She inclines her head in thanks, which Jon returns with a nod before striding ahead to catch up to Sansa. This time, he takes note of the way Sansa keeps her fingers tightly interlocked together in front of her, and decides it would be best not to offer her his arm. Instead he clasps his hands behind his back.

Jon suddenly remembers the library and thinks it would be a private enough venue for them to sit and talk some more. It doesn't take long for them to make their way there, with Jon inanely pointing out a few paintings and tapestries here and there. Sansa makes the proper noises of interest, but he can tell they're just postponing the serious conversation they are about to have.

No sooner is Septa Fasana settled with a book in the corner than Jon is sitting cattycorner from Sansa at a table and asking about Dragonstone. Her wariness melts away, leaving Jon utterly entranced as she animatedly describes her home. This far North, the skies tend to be grey most of the time, save for a few hours before Noon and when the sunlight hits Sansa's hair through the tall windows, she glows with a fiery halo. Jon is chagrined to note his surprise at the warmth with which she describes the smallfolk that reside on the island. She may be a Princess and she may have grown up in the Red Keep, but it seems Sansa's kind heart extended beyond the boundaries of her castle.

Truthfully, when Jon had found out that he would be residing at Dragonstone, he hadn't found the prospect of an island appealing. But now...listening to the picture Sansa is painting of the castle many describe as harsh and forbidding, Jon begins to imagine it as his home, too.

“Our vassal houses aren't as close to Dragonstone, relations-wise, as yours are to House Stark. But it is my hope that you and I can build up the strength of our fleet so that we can provide help and receive warnings should inva- should pirates or slaver ships sail close. I know you have experience with ships, particularly after Gulltown.”

“My training ought to come in useful, aye. My lord father also made sure I was educated in the running of a keep, how to maintain the books as well as the obligations towards smallfolk.” Sansa is frowning before he finishes his sentence.

“There is no need in the second instance. I have been maintaining the books and will continue to do so even after we are wed.”

Jon furrows his brows, that has not been the way of any lordly house he has known. His lady mother would never dare ask after the castle finances. Now, he wouldn't mind if Sansa were more proactive in the running of the castle, but he had hoped (or perhaps assumed) that he would have some equal authority in the management of Dragonstone even if the limitations on his new title would prevent him from ever truly becoming King.

“I am to be Lord of Dragonstone just as you are its Lady. A Lord's job also includes being aware of the finances,” Jon says, still bristling at Sansa's earlier tone. “Or am I to just be a name, an alliance, to be wed and cast aside like a pawn or a brood mare?”

The air in the library seems to thicken with tension and Jon straightens when he notes the way Sansa's eyes flash angrily. “A brood mare? Like I would be if our positions were reversed? Do you think women married into other houses are nothing but brood mares?”

“I did not say that!”

“You implied it,  _Ser_. And what is so bad about being a prince consort? You will keep your name, and your duties will be in line with your rank as a knight-”

“Which you seem to see as an occupation that needs to be kept in its place, am I not to truly be a husband, then?”

“It's not that simple!” She cries. “The crownlands and beyond that, the realm, is a spider's web of politics. I have grown up around these politics, I understand them-”

“And I don't?”

Sansa stammers for a moment before bursting out, “Well... _no_!”

Jon has had enough. Anger floods his blood, giving him the need to pace and let it out with sharp and unkind words. He has enough sense not to do that, so he simply bows overly profusely before addressing her. “Many pardons,  _Your Grace_ , but it seems I must needs go sharpen my sword, or some other lowly pursuit that requires no brains.”

He turns to stride out the library, but not before he hears Sansa stomp and huff after his back.

 

 

 

 

He lets out his aggression on the other men in the training yard. Not Edric or any of the younger boys of course, not wanting to have the unfair advantage of his training plus the strength of his rage potentially harming them. At some point, Robb comes out (perhaps being collected by Jory) just as Jon is calling it a draw with Ser Arthur. (" _By the gods, man, what's lit a fire under you_?") Both he and Robb had learned under Ser Rodrick, but from that point on, their training had diverged, leaving the both of them with a few surprises. 

"Did you,  _ah_! Embarrass yourself that badly?" Robb grunts as his sword is nearly slammed out of his hand. 

Aware that Ser Arthur and several other Targaryen soldiers are still in the vicinity, Jon shakes his head sharply. "Not here." The last thing he wants is for his and Sansa's business to be aired out among everyone.

The two men head off to the side under the guise of taking a rest. "We argued."

"That's succinct," Robb drawls, rolling his eyes. "About what?"

Jon condenses his and Sansa's earlier argument. "Aye, that'll do it. Look, Jon, you've both been betrothed how many years? Five?"

"Four," Jon all but bites out.

Robb is unmoved. "My point is, you two have had a long time to build up this fantasy of who the other is and now you're going to be faced with a reality that's both better and less perfect than that fantasy. Take me, for example. I barely knew Roslin before we were wedded and bedded and yes, I thought her pretty and she admitted to finding me pleasing, but with familiarity came disagreements."

"Someday, you'll be Lord Stark. I've barely even earned my knighthood and now I'm moving to a castle on an island!" Jon points out grumpily. Robb sighs, leaning back against a wooden post.

"Look, I know I probably have it easier because I don't have to leave home. You've been gone to the Vale for years, but it's still a change for you. And she  _is_  a Princess. But you won't be able to just sulk. Well, you could, but the smarter option would be to wait until the bite of anger has gone so you can discuss this rationally like the adults you now are. Roslin and I, we aren't like Father and Mother.  _Not yet_ ," Robb emphasizes the last two words. Jon glares back at his twin balefully. 

"Since when are you so wise? I could've sworn it was just yesterday you were nine and losing your breeches in front of Jeyne Poole and Beth Cass- _oof_!" The rest of Jon's teasing remark is lost as Robb tackles him to the muddy ground, both men rolling around wrestling one other.

Deep down, Jon knows Robb is right. This one argument cannot, and will not, be the be-all-end-all of his marriage. Even his own parents have quarreled, sometimes bitterly, but somehow, they both manage to compromise. Surely both he and Sansa can work out how to amicably rule Dragonstone in a way that leaves neither of them unhappy.

Except, that 'rational discussion' turns out to be easier said than done, for Jon can't seem to manage even a conversation with his bride during the last day and half before their wedding.  Dinner that evening is even more crowded now that the other Northern houses have arrived and Sansa very determinedly keeps herself turned away from him in order to talk to her sister or to Roslin. 

Her pride is feeding into her anger, and Jon is too craven to attempt to breech the walls she had put up. All he can do is forlornly admire the way the sea green dress with the golden leaf motifs complements her pale Targaryen hair and light eyes. It's the most daring dress he's seen her in, too, since it shows off her milky white shoulders. He can just feel several sets of eyes drilling into his back, detecting the strain that already lay between them.  _Perhaps tomorrow night_ , he tells himself.

 

 

The morning after he spars with Robb, Jon heads out of the castle walls with his father and Robb in order to make a show of riding into the Wolfswood for a spot of hunting for the King's benefit. It's a tad bit crowded since most of the Kingsguard accompany them, clearly distrusting the welfare of their King around so many Northerners. 

Wylis Manderly is familiar enough to Jon that he carries on a conversation with the man over several leagues. Thankfully, Roose Bolton had some paltry excuse to not attend, and Jon hardly takes it as an insult that his son, Domeric, is here in his stead. At least he hadn't brought his horrid younger half-brother with him. Sometimes it's the small mercies one learns to be most grateful for. Conversation carries on easily with Ser Arthur, Ser Rodrik,  Jory, Robb, and Lord Stark. Prince Oberyn, however, seems more interested in chatting up the other Northern lords such as the Lords Cerwyn, Forrester, and Karstark, clearly finding them as exotic as they find him peculiar. Prince Aegon doesn't seem to know what to make of the two women in their hunting party: Dacey Mormont and Lady Val, from beyond the Wall. Jon almost curls his lips in amusement at at the Prince's confusion. 

All in all, the hunt is successful, amassing quite the pile of deer and elk from those who wanted to prove their manhood rather than capture the hares Lady Stark had requested. Lady Val rather easily downs two boars, and Ned tells her that their butcher will salt half the meat to preserve it for her trip home, an act of respect she accepts readily. She does manage to get in a parting shot off well in the hearing of King Rhaegar and Prince Oberyn: "Your son's prettier than most the women I've seen, but somehow he's managed to get himself a wife even prettier than he is. That, to me, is worth having boar at the wedding feast." 

All Jon can do is close his eyes in prayer for fortitude as several others, including even his own father, laugh at his expense. 

They ride back towards Winterfell in the afternoon, sweaty and exhausted despite the cooling temperatures. Jon is more than a little startled to find himself riding abreast of Prince Oberyn and King Rhaegar. To say that he's filled with trepidation that Sansa's family has heard the content of their argument and have judged him harshly would not be overstating things. 

"You must miss all this," says the King, staring ahead at the hilly vista before them. 

"Aye," Jon responds honestly. "I have found a home in the Vale, and expect I will find a home in Dragonstone, but Winterfell will always occupy a special place in my heart."

"I can't blame you," Prince Oberyn tells him with a smile, his body moving easily with his horse's motions. "Dorne is full of heat and sand, and can be as unforgiving as I hear the winters here are. Perhaps it says something about the human condition that we can find beauty in surviving, even thriving, in such environments."

" _Life is an animal_..." Jon can't help quoting from memory. That gets him a sharp glance sideways from Rhaegar. It's only in this moment that Jon wonders if Sansa has gotten to know his family any better than he has hers. Sansa may have her mother's eyes, but she gets some of her features from her father. 

"... _For which the Gods kill themselves over and over again in sacrifice_. You know your Naemyra," his future good-father says with a trace of admiration in his voice. 

"Ah, plenty of the poets understandd the human condition," he says with a shrug, hoping he seems modest rather than dismissive. 

"My daughter has always adored the old songs and poems," Rhaegar informs him, and there is no question which daughter he refers to. "The truly evocative works move her to tears much in the same way they did her late mother. She is forever inviting bards and scholars to Dragonstone in the hopes that they would be equally moved by their surroundings and write of the castle and its island. But, it seems, very few can truly appreciate the beauty in a harsh-looking castle."

Rhaegar stops there, and Jon is left wondering whether he ought to be analyzing each comment in depth for some secondary meaning. Was it advice? A warning? Mere small talk? Jon had absolutely no clue how to make sense of Southroners sometimes. 

King Rhaegar digs his heels into his horse and sends the animal into a faster cant, heading towards where Lord Stark and Ser Arthur ride nearby in amicable discussion. Something of Jon's confusion must have shown on his face, because he's torn from his musings by Prince Oberyn's chuckle. 

"Don't invest too much significance in my good-brother's words. You have satisfied what few conditions he had for marriage to his daughter and, not to insult you, but very few of them had to do with  _you_."

"My name, you mean. An alliance with my father." Jon states the obvious with a sigh. There's no use in being upset over the reality of things. He was highborn. So was she. Their destinies were at the mercy of politics. 

"Yes." Oberyn wasn't one to mince words. After several more minutes' canter, he continues: "I do, however, know much more about your bride than the face she puts forth as Princess to the realm."

Jon decides to take the implicit invitation as it is. "I would welcome any advice you have, Prince Oberyn."

Oberyn tugs on his reins and jerks his chin to get Jon to follow him further away from the hunting party. From potentially prying ears. Once they are a suitable distance away, he starts speaking. "You have to remember that Sansa, while sweet and kind-hearted, has grown up in King's Landing surrounded by a very particular type of double-speak and has learned to navigate the dangerous waters of courtly politics. I believe you two disputed what authority you would have in the castle, yes?" At Jon's bashful nod, Oberyn continues. "Mind you, I'm not saying she was right to deny you some command over the books, but please consider that Sansa has long feared being married to a man who would seek to ignore her capabilities and only use the marriage to wrest control of her home from her."

"But I wouldn't- my lady mother may not have considered it her place to know such matters, but I would not keep Sansa from-" Jon can't seem to get a complete thought out.

"And I believe you," Oberyn interjects. "Yet, plenty on Dragonstone Island did not think Sansa capable enough, being a woman ruler and she had to prove herself, all the while having Dragonstone be her first learning curve as a Lady."

It's not until now that Jon realizes, with some clarity, that just as he worries about losing his sense of self with this marriage, so does Sansa worry about the same. All of the sudden, her words in the library take on other meaning. "I think I understand now, thank you."

They gallop on in silence, enjoying the crest of another hill, pausing at the top to watch the dark gray clouds rolling in from the northeast. This time of the season, they have to expect storms. Oberyn turns to him then. 

"You know, the King strongly wished to create an alliance with the North. If not to the Starks, then the second choice would have been House Bolton."

That, Jon finds hard to accept. Domeric he has a good amount of esteem for, having known the man for several years since they'd both squired in the Vale. Domeric had a healthy respect for history and played the harp much as Sansa's father does. Him, alone, she would have been happy with, but... "The King would have broken Domeric's betrothal to Myranda Royce?"

Oberyn snorts and stares hard at Jon, as if mildly disappointed in his naivete. "The King was never going to send his daughter away and Domeric is his father's heir. No, this betrothal was being pushed by Lord Bolton's current wife, Lady Cersei. A long time ago, her father, Lord Tywin Lannister, wished to betroth her to the then Prince Rhaegar. His petition was rejected by King Aerys. I'm sure their pride has been a festering wound ever since." The implication could not have been any more clear.

Bile nearly rises in Jon's throat. The thought of Sansa wedded to such a vile piece of shit like Joffrey Bolton is horrifying. He could remember one such conversation he'd overheard between his father and Lord Umber when he was a child...something about Ned wondering why Lord Tywin would even consider marrying his only daughter into such a house. With a pang of fear, Jon realizes that perhaps he is only now becoming aware of the dangerous game of politics swirling throughout the Seven Kingdoms. That there is a danger practically right outside his family's gates.

"Domeric is a decent man, though I doubt Princess Sansa would have found the Dreadfort as delightful a home as she finds Dragonstone. Joffrey, on the other hand..." He leaves the thought unsaid. But he shares a meaningful look with Oberyn.

"Then you and I are in agreement, Ser Jon Stark," Oberyn tells him, not a trace of mirth on his face. "What it comes down to, is that you and Sansa will have to learn to trust one other. 'Tis as simple as that, and even that will pose its own difficulties."

That, is perhaps the most harrowing piece of advice Jon has gotten thus far. And he suspects that someday, it will prove to have been the most valuable.

 

 

* * *

 

Note: I found some snippets of the next chapter that were never polished or uploaded so, here, have them in their rough glory:

 

 

Sansa can see the clench to Jon's jaw and the complete stiffness with which he affects a bow. She may barely know this man, but she can tell when someone is mocking her. “Many pardons, Your Grace,” he simpers, “but it seems I must needs go sharpen my sword, or some other lowly pursuit that requires no brains.”

Sansa gasps in shock at his impudence, watching the broad planes of his back as he stalks out the library. Her feet seem to have grown roots right where she stands and dimly she is aware of Septa Fasana coming to her side and pressing a worried hand to her arm. Lady Brienne enters in Jon's wake, frowning between the departing knight and her charge.

“Princess, what in the name of the Mother was that all about?” Septa Fasana murmurs.

Sansa can do naught but stomp her foot and growl, “Men must be the most maddeningly egoistical creatures _ever_!”

Brienne and the diminutive Septa share a look and it is the former who mutters, “Well you'll get no argument from us about that.” The humor of the moment is lost to her and Sansa collects herself just enough to not risk insulting her hosts and future good-family by storming through the halls in a pique. She would have preferred to fling herself on top of her temporary bed and scream into her pillow in solitude but alas, that was not to be.

 

...........................

 

Arya doesn't bother trying to restrain the series of curses that spill form her lips as she lands in the mud, a very distinct tear in her training jerkin. Sansa winces, for she has noticed how Lady Catelyn disapproves of her only daughter fighting like a man and the evidence of this in the shape of damaged clothing will only cause tension. “Give it to me,” she tells Arya, easily keeping up with the other girl's shorter legs despite her enraged stride.

“What? Why?”

“Leather is a hard material to work with, but I have the urge to stab something with my own Needle. Rather violently.”

Her soon-to-be goodsister raises an eyebrow but says nothing as she undoes the straps of her jerkin and pulls it over her head, handing it over with a careless shrug. “Have at it.”

.........................

She knows, before she even gets several steps underway, that she has gained another shadow. “I am not in a mood for conversation, Uncle,” she tosses over her shoulder. Oberyn steps out of the corner he had been...not hiding in...loitering in, he would say, and makes a leisurely pace behind her, hands clasped behind his back.

“No, you are clearly in the mood for some domestic tasks as befitting a gentle maiden who is soon to be wife,” he drawls.

“I am also not in the mood to be japed about.”

“Don't look at it as a jape, then. Look at it as your older, still-handsome uncle imparting his years of wisdom for your benefit.”

“Yes, perhaps I ought to lead Ser Jon around on a golden chain,” Sansa says, throwing back Oberyn's experience with Nymeria's mother in his face.

Oberyn clucks his tongue. “ _Now_ , there would be a sight.”

...................

“There are rumors in the east.”

“There are always rumors in the east. What makes this one worth heeding?”

“Your aunt has come in possession of three eggs. Three very live eggs.”

Sansa gapes at Oberyn, her needle-hand freezing mid-motion. “Dr-”

He holds up a warning hand. “Tut-tut.”

“I cannot think where she hopes to hatch them.”

“Aye, it would be difficult to prevent rumors from spreading, whether it is on the Dothraki Sea or...I don't know...an island.”

Sansa thinks on her aunt's last visit to King's Landing, when she brought with her the bones of her brother, Prince Viserys. Dany had begged and pleaded with Rhaegar to not lash out at his much unexpected goodfamily- Khal Drogo and his people- for they had only sought to protect their new Khaleesi after her own brother had attacked her. But there had been one night, a dinner with only the family and certain highly ranked nobles, where Sansa had found herself looking at her aunt and the ghost of a satisfied smile on her face. What did Dany intend to do with her dragons, if they were indeed real and survived the hatching process? Sansa cannot say she misses her uncle. The man had always looked at her in a way that made her skin crawl. For all Sansa felt a polite distance between herself and her half-siblings, she had been closer to Daenerys.

_Would you kill me, too, if I were in your way?_

“I received a raven from Dragonstone. Maester Lorin says the island's newest industry is making splendid progress.”

 

............. 

 


	13. 'Til Our Compass Stands Still (Jon/Sansa)

Summary:

After Ned Stark dies during the Greyjoy Rebellion, Lady Catelyn sends Jon away to White Harbor. Years later, he hears about his former half-sister, now cousin being a prisoner in King's Landing and sets out to rescue her.

Another discontinued fic from the early days(ish).  Fair warning if you don't remember this from last year, it involves a dirtybadwrong scene where Jon knows Sansa is his cousin, but she still thinks he's her bastard half-brother (albeit one she hasn't seen in like, thirteen years).

* * *

 

 

Sansa dreams of icy fingers that turn her flesh numb even as she burns with a faint fever in the waking world. Joffrey had been particularly vicious yesterday; he'd ordered the Kingsguard to rip her gown down the back, exposing the vulnerable skin, and Ser Meryn lashed her with a whip as punishment for Robb's victory in taking Casterly Rock. Sansa had continued to disavow her traitor family but to no avail. What Joffrey and Cersei desired most from her was seeing her humiliation, so that was what she surrendered to them.

She hates the pain and the degradation of capitulating in that particular way, but the performance shielded her. As long as her jailers look at her and see a pathetic little mockingbird, they don't see her as a wolf. Though she hides her true self away in her heart of hearts, the only space in which she is truly free, she can feel her spirit dying a slow death.

With her wounds, Sansa sleeps poorly these days. That's why the soft click of the door to her chambers opening wakes her. Eyes wide, she tenses as she picks up the almost imperceptible footfalls. Whoever has snuck into her chambers is being stealthy. She is so used to terror that it is a near constant state of being. Therefore what she feels now, swamped with thoughts of rape or torture or even death, is little different from how she feels when she breaks her fast every morn.

The footsteps pause next to her bed and Sansa decides that  _no_ , she is going to fight: she flings her covers back and rushes for anything in the room she can use as a weapon. There's a sharply muttered curse and before she gets far, the intruder makes it around the bed and grabs ahold of her, clamping a gloved hand over her mouth before she can scream the palace down. She doesn't expect that anyone would have come to her aid, but she's beyond tired of playing the little dove. She is a Stark and she is a wolf. She will not roll over so easily for death.

“ _Sansa_!” Death whispers harshly by her ear, making her go limp and the shredded skin on her back burn once more. “Sansa, it's me...it's Jon.” She is spun around and in the faint moonlight she can make out her brother ( _half-brother_ ), so familiar yet so different. She has not seen him in thirteen years, not since her mother sent him away after their father died. He is a man grown now. If it weren't for how closely he resembles her father's family, she wouldn't have recognized him. After all, she was but four when he was sent to White Harbor.

“Jon?” she whispers hoarsely, not daring to believe he is truly here. There is so much kindness in his eyes, more than she would have ever expected. She wonders if she is dreaming.

“Shush," his fingers dig into her upper arms. "I've come to get you out of King's Landing. We must hurry.”

“How?”

“The Starks are not without allies,” he tells her enigmatically before wrapping his hand around her own, threading their fingers together. There are many more questions on her tongue, but Sansa swallows them and does as Jon bids.

 

 

 

She scarcely realizes it when they are outside of the Red Keep through one of the hidden entrances Sansa doubts even Queen Cersei knows about. They change into new clothing in a dirty, stinky alley. It's embarrassing for Sansa but thankfully, Jon studiously keeps his back turned, changing with his attention on the mouth of the alley. Sansa faces his back because she does not want to risk even a glance when her own bloody back is bared.

Her cheeks redden, not only from the low-cut and sparse material of her dress, but from the sight of her brother's (half-brother's, she reminds herself once more) naked body. He's expedient: changing first into his new roughspun tunic before shoving his breeches down his hips. It's maidenly embarrassment, Sansa tells herself, from never having seen a male body unclothed thus.

“I'm sorry,” Jon says when he looks back and notes her tugging at the neckline and hem of the dress. “If we want to warrant no suspicion, we have to look like one of the smallfolk headed to the docks with his whore.” As if realizing what he'd just said, he rushes to explain, “not that- not that you would ever look like a whore. Here, cover your head with this cloak.” He can't seem to look her in the eye after that.

“Clearly, after thirteen years you still have not learned how to speak to women,” Sansa mocks him mildly, managing a small grin at the half-hearted glare Jon shoots her. “Why are we going to the docks anyhow? I thought Mother and Robb were in the Westerlands.”

“We're not going to them right away. I know how much you must want to see your family, but damn near the entire Lannister army is between us and the armies of the North and the Riverlands. We can't risk going up to White Harbor because the Crown's spies will be out listening for us. So we are going south.”

“South? You mean to Dorne?”

“Aye, to Sunspear. Like I said, the Starks are not without allies. Even ones that are staying quiet for the time being until they can strike.”

 

 

They make it down dark and sparsely populated streets all the way to the dock without impediment. Her heart feels like it's going to burst out of her chest, that's how terrified she is that they will be caught. But it's Jon's arm slung low around her hips that keeps her pace from becoming a downright sprint. After all, Jon is supposed to be in his cups and Sansa supposes that as a lady of the night, she wouldn't be in a rush for yet another drunken rutting.

Still, she is alarmed by how lovely it feels to be touched and shielded by Jon. How long has it been since she has had gentleness? Kindness? He keeps glancing sideways at her as if he can't believe it is her. Voices shout nearby and Sansa nearly faints before she realizes they're only coming from a gaming house up the street. They turn again and this time she can make out the glittering surface of water in the distance.

Jon spins them around suddenly, propelling her backwards into a corner only partially camouflaged by a stack of wooden crates. Sansa nearly cries out as her back makes contact with rough stone.

“Shh,” Jon shushes her and that's when Sansa becomes all too aware of the entire length of his body now pressed against hers, crowding her into the wall. Horses. She hears the horses now. _Goldcloaks_. Before she can ask him what he means by it, Jon is fumbling between their bodies, undoing his breeches and letting them fall to his thighs. Then he lifts her skirts, exposing her bare legs to the night air. Sansa is too stunned to push against Jon's wrists, to cover herself back up.

“Jon, what-” she tries to keep her voice at a whisper. He gives her a pained look, beseeching her with his eyes.

“I'm sorry, but I have to make it look real. Tuck your face in,” he orders her. All she can do is stare at him dumbfounded.

“Hide your face.” The command is sharper, and it snaps her out of her stupor. Sansa quickly complies, bending just enough to tuck her nose into where his neck and shoulder meet, thankful that the hood of her borrowed cloak makes it impossible to glean the color of her hair. She can smell the masculine scent of him this close- sweat and musk. Jon braces one hand against the wall and grabs at her leg with the other, curling his fingers around the back of her knee to bring it up around his hip.

In that moment, Sansa is immensely grateful for the screen provided by Jon's neck, for he begins to jerk against her in the most indiscreet manner. Her cheeks flame and all she can do is clutch at his bicep and at the material of his tunic. She has never, in all her life, been in a compromising situation like this. Her mind must be slipping into shock because Sansa is noting how nice the calluses on Jon's fingers feel against the soft skin of her knee.

The weight of his body, as little of it as he will allow to come into contact with the cradle of her thighs, makes a sickly sweet heat grow in her belly and a peculiar throb begin, like a heartbeat, in her flower. She is depraved, she must be, and debauched, to feel such improper things when her half-brother is only trying to save her. Maybe she  _has_  been ruined beyond repair.

Sansa tries valiantly to move further away, but that only forces the uneven stone dig into a particularly deep gash on her lower back. Pain flares, driving her to buck her hips only to encounter a sharper spike of pleasure. She can't stop the soft gasp and moan that escapes her lips, vibrating against Jon's neck.

He goes completely still, letting out a quiet expletive against his hand on the wall. Sansa halfway wishes for the Stranger to come out of the alley and take her so she doesn't have to face Jon. He must be horrified, Sansa thinks dimly. So disgusted by her. What must he think of her?

“They're gone,” he announces, chancing a glance to the street they had just been on. “We can move again.” With that, Jon steps away from her, letting her leg down before hurriedly lacing his breeches back up. Sansa fixes her dress and cloak, not daring to look at Jon. Her traitorous body already misses the warmth of his.

He reaches for her hand, pulling her back to his side, arm slung around her hip just like before. They continue down the street towards the dock and unlike before, Sansa finds she cannot bear the silence, which has grown thickly. “How did you come to be on such terms with Dorne?” She murmurs.

“You know I was Lord Manderly's ward. One day these pirates decided to chance a raid on the northern edges of the city itself. It was my luck that when I decided to fight them myself, Prince Oberyn Martell had been newly arrived on a Dornish merchant ship from Braavos.”

“How old were you?”

“Four and ten.”

“So young!” she marvels. She remembers then that Jon had only been a boy of seven when her lady mother had sent him away and shame makes her heart ache for him. Jon shrugs, the motion jostling her slightly.

“Perhaps, but old enough to squire. The Prince was impressed with not only my skill with the sword but with my mind also, though he found my footwork too clumsy. He asked if I would like to squire for House Martell and when I told him that yes I would, he formally requested that Lord Manderly release me from his care.”

“Why did you want to go so far south in the first place?” They are so close now, Sansa could make out a row of ships, all of them in the process of either loading or unloading goods even at this hour.

“You ask a lot of questions, Sansa.” There is no way for her to miss the bemusement in his voice.

“I need to take my mind off of how terrified I am. Also that stone wall was a pain digging into my back.” Sansa fervently hopes that Jon accepts the excuse and believes she had only sought to alleviate her discomfort, not...not...

“A small discomfort is paltry price to pay for freedom, Sansa.” She is ashamed again, this time to know he thinks she's just being a spoiled brat. She should tell him about the whip-marks that scour her flesh, but she doesn't want to worry him until they are underway from King's Landing. “But to answer your question: I...I wished to go to the place where I was born, to perhaps learn my mother's identity since...”

Sansa nods in understanding. “Since Father died before he could tell you. And did you find the answers you sought?”

“Aye. I not only found out who my mother was, but who my father was, too.”

Sansa frowns at him, "I don't understand".  Jon leads her round a small, derelict building overlooking the docks. Right before they head into the absolute darkness, he pauses and faces her, an indescribable expression on his face.

“Sansa, Lord Eddard Stark was never my father. I am your aunt Lyanna's son by Prince Rhaegar.”

Her head swims with that revelation. “Gods, Jon. That makes you my cousin!”

“That it does,” he says somberly. This is the last she sees of him as they head through a back door into a room that smells as if the wood has gone rotten from the damp. Jon calls out calmly to someone and Sansa hears another male voice respond. She does not verbalize a single word of doubt when they bid her to get inside a large wooden crate. At least it is lightly packed with straw and a woolen blanket.

“You won't be in there for long,” Jon reassures her. “We've paid off the dock master and he's gone to enjoy a cup of ale, but we need him to assume we're only smuggling goods out to avoid the tax, not a hostage of the crown.”

Sansa nods, not really caring that they couldn't see her. “Will you be on the ship, too?” She asks Jon.

“Of course.”

“Then this is nothing to endure.”

It's disorienting to be carried inside a crate down an incline, then up a gangplank and onto a gently moving ship. She is hot and sweaty and her body aches. She hates the way the dress and cloak are so revealing and so scratchy on her skin. But the emotion that wants to bubble up in her throat is not frustration, but happiness. For she is not alone any longer. Jon may not be her half-brother, but he is still her family and though she knows him so little, she trusts him.

Almost as soon as she has the thought, Sansa is viciously stamping it into dust. It wouldn't do to get too excited, she scolds herself, remembering how often she had been betrayed by people who she'd thought she could trust. Just because Jon Snow seems kind delivering her out of King's Landing does not mean that he wouldn't abandon her to another unsavory fate. And then there is the problem of Dorne helping him...

The crate lid is pried open and, blinking in the candlelight, Sansa sits up and takes in the small cabin that has a cot in one corner, complete with a pillow and a blanket. Jon crouches before her and holds out a hand for her to take so she can stand up and step out of the crate. As she does so, Sansa spots a man heading out of the cabin with the lid of the crate. Against the wall next to the door are a man and a younger woman; both are olive-skinned, with dark hair and dark eyes. The more Sansa studies the man, the more she recognizes him.

“Prince Oberyn,” she announces, dipping into as stiff-backed a curtsy as she can manage, not wanting to give the others more of a view of her breasts than they are already getting. “I'm told I have you and Dorne to thank for my escape.”

Just because her hair is a mess and she's dressed as a whore is no excuse for skimping on her manners.

Prince Oberyn raises a single eyebrow, though the woman at his side tilts her head, studying Sansa as if she were a pet who had just done a particularly interesting trick. “Think nothing on it, Princess. The Martells could not well leave another young woman at the mercy of the Lannisters.”  _Not like Elia._ It is almost on the tip of her tongue to reject the title 'Princess' out of hand. Ever since her brother had been named King in the North, Sansa has been decrying her status, insisting that she was nothing more than a traitor's sister.

“And besides, thank y- thank Ser Jon. It was he who came to us with the news from your brother that you had been taken hostage in King's Landing.”

Sansa inclines her head in agreement. “And I will, Prince Oberyn.” She makes sure to stare him right in the eyes without flinching. He was not one of those at court during one of her more violent humiliations, but she remembers him sitting on a council with Tywin Lannister and seeming right at home in the Red Keep. She would be a fool to blindly trust him.

Jon's hand is at her elbow then, breaking her small staring contest with the Prince. “This room is yours for the voyage, Sansa. It'll take just over two days to make it to Sharp Point, beyond that we will meet up with a Dornish merchant vessel that will take us the rest of the way to Sunspear in twelve more days.”

A fortnight's worth of traveling by sea. A novelty, but Sansa supposes she will simply have to adapt to it the same way she has adapted to everything over the past two years. Oh, why did Prince Oberyn have to be on this ship? Why couldn't it just have been her and Jon? There are times Sansa wonders if she will ever feel a true measure of security again.

Oberyn speaks up, smoothly supporting Jon's assertions. “Yes, Princess. We do have a bit of a journey ahead of us, perhaps you should get a few hours' rest before we talk further? My daughter, Nymeria, can assist you if you need it,” Oberyn informs her, jerking his chin in the direction of his female companion. Nymeria glares up at her father, seemingly insulted by what he was asking of her.

“That's alright,” Sansa tells the prince drolly. “I hardly think this dress will be difficult to remove. I shall see you in the morning. And Prince Oberyn?” His lips twitch with amusement but he continues to play his part gallantly.

“Hm?”

“I-I would greatly prefer it if you tell me what is to be my fate, my debt paid, in clear terms. No dancing around the topic.” She tells him this earnestly because it is true. She does not want to spend over a week in the dark, not knowing what Dorne expected of her. It is much better to know, she thinks.

Jon's grip on her elbow tightens and she can tell he's about to decry what she is implying of them. But Oberyn interrupts him. “Very well, Princess. I bid you good night.” With that, he bows and heads out of the cabin, his daughter following behind with a jaunty little wave.

Leaving her alone with Jon.

He watches the two leave before he moves to stand in front of her, a frown marring his face. “What in the names of the Old Gods and the New was that, Sansa?” He explodes.

Sansa allows herself a small moment to breathe in deeply before meeting the demand in his eyes. “I really don't know what you mean,  _cousin_.”

Jon reacts as if slapped. His eyes flit from side to side, unseeing, as he fights to understand. “We are saving you! Don't you understand that? You're free now! We are not your enemy.” She sees the tension in the line of his shoulders and the way his hands clench at his sides and empties herself of everything. Fear, pain, righteous anger.

“Nobody does anything for free, Jon. And Dorne would not take such a risk with me if they did not expect something in return,” she explains patiently. Jon's expression shutters and Sansa can't stop the feeling of dread flooding her gut. “You know they do not. I see.”

Jon dares to meet her eyes then, reaching up to rest his hands on her shoulders. “I would not let anything bad happen to you, can you believe that? All I have done is guarantee that you will be safe and free.”

Sansa nods politely. “I really should get some rest now, it's been a long night.” She steps away from him and, in spite of the pain it brings her, bends down to pull the blanket away from the mattress.

Jon sighs miserably behind her. “Fine. We'll talk in the morning. Goodnight, Sansa.”

“Goodnight, Jon.”

Sansa all but collapses on the mattress the moment Jon closes the door behind him, breathing so hard she nearly hyperventilates. She tries to tell herself that whatever it is, she  _can_  and  _will_  survive it. She has survived everything else so far, she can keep going for a little while longer. Dorne may have won Jon's loyalty, but she is still very much a Stark, still very much Eddard Stark's daughter. Her aunt was either kidnapped by or ran off with Rhaegar Targaryen, humiliating Elia Martell. And the rebellion ended with Elia's brutal death...hers and that of her children.

Sansa  _cannot_  expect unconditional mercy.

Sitting there on the makeshift bed, Sansa finally allows herself a moment to process the fact that she has escaped the Red Keep. She is under no illusion that this will keep her out of the lions' clutches. But at the very least she will be able to breathe a little easier and let her wounds heal. Speaking of, Sansa decides to remove her cloak and dress, to strip off the threadbare and bloody chemise so she can allow the welts to breathe. They throb so.

It must be just past dawn as she pulls the blanket- of a softer, finer quality than she'd expected to find on such a ship- and climbs inside, lying down on her stomach and sweeping her hair to the side. She'll pull the blanket up over her body in...just a moment. She'll turn onto her side...she will...

Sansa is asleep within minutes.

 

* * *

 

  
  
  


Jon's mind races with all sorts of thoughts, nearly all of them having to do with the beautiful maiden in the cabin down the hall. And aye, she  _is_  beautiful, so much that he had been unprepared for it. If it wouldn't give him away, he would scold Prince Oberyn for not warning him of this fact. Jon remembers the tiny, polite lady who had hated getting her dresses dirty, who had insisted on teaching him the proper way to dance, and who had looked so sad when he left. Sansa had frowned in confusion as she tried, at barely four years of age, to understand what it was about Jon that meant she couldn't play with him.

 _This_ Sansa is a woman flowered, at once hard and soft. Every expression she makes is both oddly familiar and wholly novel. Jon pauses against the wall several paces from the entrance to Oberyn's cabin, blood pooling in his cock at the memory of Sansa, her body pressed so intimately against his and that broken moan against his throat. He bites back a groan, thinking of how she looked in her shift and then that damned dress he'd given her.

Jon half expects the Mother herself to descend upon him for wishing Sansa were back in his arms, where he could- he stops himself before he can continue that line of thought.

He is expected to marry her.

When he had arrived in Dorne, he'd kept his head down and tried to acclimate to his new environment. He was older than most of the children in the classes, but he'd needed training so he could learn the proper forms for the Dornish style of combat and he spent the rest of his time squiring with Ser Arron Qorgyle. When he had finally built up enough courage to broach the topic of his mother, Oberyn had brought him to Prince Doran. Jon...hadn't reacted well.

“If you must brood,” the familiar dulcet tones call from inside the cabin. “You might as well do it in here where I can ply you with wine.”

Jon sighs and pushes away from the wall, entering the spacious cabin that held his liege lord. Oberyn is sat at the table, which is already cluttered with books, letters, and wine goblets. Jon is, by now, well acquainted with Oberyn's inability to be completely neat.

“I really don't know how you can expect me not to brood when you're constantly flinging yourself into danger and making my job harder,” Jon tosses back, taking a seat across from him. He tries to imitate Oberyn's lazy slouch, but the best he can do is brace his legs apart and relax his spine.

Oberyn snorts, giving Jon an unapologetic shrug. “You know you would be bored without the challenges I provide. And you have yet to perform less than admirably, Ser.”

Both men fall silent, Jon from his habitual modesty in the face of praise, and Oberyn in order to pour Jon some wine. The rock and roll of the boat tells him they are well out to sea now, and not fast enough for him. Jon doesn't think he'll rest easy until they have got Sansa safely in Sunspear.

“Have you told her?” Jon curses Oberyn's ability to read him like one of his books.

“That I am her cousin and we are taking her to Dorne? Aye, that I've told her.”

“But nothing of your Aunt and her plan to unify the North to her crown?” He probes.

Jon bristles under his interrogation. “We were in a bit of a hurry, in case you had forgotten. I've only just liberated her from King's Landing and told her I am not her half-brother, but her cousin. At least give her a few days' time on this voyage before I break the news that Daenerys wishes us to wed.”

It had taken Jon some time to accept that the father he had loved was his uncle, and that his parents were not only both dead, but their actions had ripped the kingdoms of Westeros apart with war. Four moons ago, Jon met his aunt for the first time. He had been convinced that she would sic her dragons on him to remove him as a challenger to her claim on the throne- a throne he had emphatically told her he did not want. Mercifully, the dragon queen had shown no interest in murdering him, only befriending one of the few family members she had left in the world.

One of the things that had worried Jon as he made the voyage to Essos was that he'd be expected to marry his aunt and keep the Targaryen line of succession pure. Dany'd had an amused smile on her face when Jon exhaled loudly in relief upon finding out that Prince Doran's ambitions extended to putting his son Quentyn up as a potential King Consort.

Then Daenerys had asked him to bind her, and by extension Dorne, to the North by marrying Sansa.

 

“ _Lady Catelyn would never forgive me for this.”_

“ _She already does not forgive you for existing.”_

 

“I'm afraid I can only give you until tomorrow...well, later today. I  _did_  give my word to Princess Sansa that I would be forthright with her. I think after everything she's been through, we owe her that,” Oberyn says.

Jon glowers at the reminder, curling his hands into fists. How he fervently wishes he could pummel the little butcher king's face into a pulp!

“I'm sorry she treated you so rudely.”

“She has nothing to be sorry for, Jon. After all, she has little reason to trust me or Dorne and words can sometimes be just that- only words. Air and sound, signifying nothing. Speaking of words- allow a few from me in wisdom and advice: you might want to stop thinking of your future wife as a trembling little flower.”

“Why? Because it'll make it easier to manipulate her?” Jon shoots back bitterly.

“No," Oberyn intones. "Because you don't survive around people as vicious as Cersei Lannister and her whelp without having to be very strong in unexpected ways.”

Whatever answer Jon would have given his prince is interrupted by Lady Nym's entrance. She slinks inside the cabin, the ghost of a smirk on her face and her whip coiled at her hip as always. “Dinner,” she announces, explaining the tray of plates she held in her hands. “And don't you two look thick as thieves.”

Oberyn cocks his head to the side, smiling fondly at his second-born. Seeing that makes a not so small pang go through his heart, for it is bittersweet to see such love a highborn father can have for a bastard child. “How solicitous of you, daughter. Perhaps you would join our debate on my side, for Ser Jon is proving to be stubborn and  _chivalrous_.”

The last is meant as a mild insult, and Jon does nothing but snort and sit up in his chair as Nymeria sets the tray down on the mostly bare table as her father clears it of some books and papers. He feels her dark eyes peering at him from underneath thick lashes. She had of late taken to wearing a golden ring in her nose that connected in a thin, delicate chain to a cuff earring, a manner of adornment used by the Volantene. He chances a glance upwards as he accepted his plate, only to see her full lips purse in amusement. “In other words, he is being his usual self.”

“Four plates, Nym?” he asks her innocently. Jon has spent seven years thrusting and parrying with the Sand Snakes in all manner of ways; he knows how to play his hand.

She huffs. “I might as well take one to the Princess later.”

“How  _gracious_  of you-”

Her eyes darken with fury and a booted foot reaches out to shove roughly at his shin. “Watch yourself, wolf shit-”

“Now, now, children,” Oberyn scolds them, though the effect is lost due to his lighthearted grin. Jon smirks right back at Nymeria before picking up his knife and fork to dig into the meal of roasted fish and spiced vegetables.

“Tell me, father, what sort of stick does Jon have up his ass now?” 

Oberyn, ignoring Jon's glowering, enlightens Nymeria. “I believe he thoroughly enjoyed playing the part of the knight rescuing the fair, suffering maiden. Yet he doesn't seem to see how the fair maiden herself is every bit a wolf as her brother is rumored to be.”

Jon all but slams his fork down on the plate. “And  _I_  think you're making light of her captivity...my prince.” He tacks the honorific onto the end of his comment a tad facetiously.

Nymeria arches an eyebrow as she delicately cuts into her fish. “I was barely in the same room with her for a tenth of a hour but even I can tell the little bird has teeth. Probably has claws, too, as I'm sure Jon will find out sooner or later. It doesn't matter that he doesn't see it now.”

“How so?” Oberyn asks, giving his own meal a rest to lean back in his chair and indulge further in his goblet of wine.

“He's going to marry her, isn't he? He'll have to accept it, if he wants a pleasant life with his new wife.” Even her rhyme sounds mocking.

Jon may have sworn vows to serve House Martell, but there has always been a mutinous streak in him that didn't want to go along with certain demands. “I won't marry her if she doesn't wish to.”

That gets him a long-suffering groan from Oberyn. “For the hundredth time, boy, Dorne will not force Princess Sansa's hand. But we will make it clear that this is the best way to create a strong alliance with the North. The Young Wolf may have styled himself the 'King Who Un-Knelt', but if he continues to insist on a Northern independence after the Dragon Queen takes the throne, such an alliance may be their only saving grace. I think your cousin will be wise enough to understand that.”

Jon bites his tongue then. He has been exposed to enough politics to hate the concessions one sometimes has to make, the level of doublespeak employed. No, better that he isn't on the Iron Throne; his place is as a soldier.

The meal continues in strained silence, with only the clink and scrape of cutlery to break it up. Oberyn does try valiantly to turn the mood by recounting for Nymeria a story about the time they ran afoul of pirates in the Stepstones. It's a ribald tale that involves both Jon and poor Ser Daemon dressing up as women in order to pull off the caper.

Jon chooses not to add much to the story Oberyn is adding embellishments onto, remembering all to well how the older man had offered him a place in his berth for the night. Jon had turned him down, with no hard feelings, but he was fairly certain Daemon had accepted Oberyn's proposition. Dinner, as late as it is, winds down and Nymeria takes her leave to bring Sansa her meal of bread, cold cuts, fruits and cheeses. Something that would keep even if she did not wake to consume it right away.

Jon steadily ignores Oberyn as he pours himself yet another helping of wine. It holds only a hint of sourness in it, having been prepared correctly, if a bit rushed, aboard the ship by the Dornish steward. Sweetened and spiced, the way outsiders never understood it ought to be.

“I wish I could lift some of the worry from your shoulders, Jon.” The admission is stark, coming from Oberyn, and it is genuine.

“I know. But I don't think it's your words that can reassure me right now.”

“Very well. At least consid-”

It's father's turn to be interrupted by daughter as the door bangs open and Nymeria strides into her father's cabin, fury flashing in her eyes. In her hand, she still carries the plate of food, which she then drops onto the table without a care for Oberyn's things.

“Nym?”

Nymeria has to inhale, then exhale slowly before she can get a word out. “She needs a Maester, Father, for the  _bloody whip marks_  that scour her back,” she informs them in a clipped tone. “Gods only know what other wounds she carries, for I didn't dare wake her to ask.”

Dread pools in Jon's gut, an emotion he sees mirrored in Prince Oberyn's eyes. Together, the two men stalk out of the cabin towards the one Nymeria had just left. Oberyn enters first, his movements utterly silent so as not to disturb the unconscious woman inside. Jon follows, along with Nymeria, and what he sees defies his comprehension.

Red. Her hair is red, splashed across the sand-colored pillows. Red. The gashes carved so violently into her skin are even redder, perhaps because of the contrast of the pale skin of her back. Blood. Blood is red.

Jon cannot school his reaction, he gasps her name, horrified: “ _Sansa_.”

That startles her out of her unsound sleep and she jerks, head raising from the pillow as her eyes dart around the cabin fearfully. Jon can see the moment she recognizes the three intruders, remembers where she is, and realizes how undressed she is. “What are you doing?” she croaks, clutching at the sheets underneath her. “Get out!”

Jon is thankful then, for Oberyn's presence, because he finds himself immobilized by the wild look in her eyes...akin to a cornered animal.

“Princess... _Sansa_ ,” Oberyn commands her to focus on him with his tone and she does, breathing fitfully. “Be calm, we do not come to harm you. But your wounds cannot go untreated. Will you allow us to aid you?”

Sansa blinks again, still looking like she wants to lash out, but to Jon's everlasting relief, she considers Oberyn's words and nods. “Are you a Maester, then, my lord?”

That gets her a chuckle from Oberyn as he takes the chair from her table and brings it over to her bedside. “Something like it. I did study at the Citadel and forged several chains...including in medicine.”

“My father is more than skilled enough to treat you, Princess. I can swear to that,” Nymeria tells her quietly. Jon can see from the blank expression on her face how shaken she is to see such cruelty inflicted someone so undeserving. For all that she is a bastard and Sansa a highborn lady, Nymeria has perhaps been more privileged in certain ways, having being raised in Dorne. He grips her shoulder comfortingly before approaching Sansa's bedside and kneeling down. “We can't let them fester,” he murmurs to her. When those brilliant blue eyes meet his, staring right into his soul and  _searching_ , Jon feels unmanned.

“Alright,” she says after some length. “I'd be grateful for anything you can give me. I've worried that they would become infected.”

Oberyn reaches for the candle, bringing it over to where Sansa lay. “May I?”

She nods, and he leans over the bed, peering carefully at the lash-marks. “I'm simply going to touch your skin to see its reaction and get a feel for the warmth below.” Oberyn's warning is appreciated, because Sansa reaches out for Jon's hand, curling her fingers into his own and gripping tightly. As soon as Oberyn begins prodding at the wounds, she is gasping sharply and tensing, prompting Jon to squeeze her hand. Distantly, he hears Oberyn call back to Nymeria, telling her what items to locate and bring back. But Jon? He's wholly taken by the hold Sansa's eyes have on him, by the trust she is tentatively extending in such a vulnerable state.

“What happened? Why did they do this?” He asks her, unable to quash his curiosity for a moment longer.

Her voice is devoid of any affect when she says, “I earned my scars at Casterly Rock, same as my brother's bannermen.”

His squeezes his eyes shut in an effort to stem the tears and places his other hand over her hair, smoothing the mussed strands. “They had no right. You were a highborn prisoner-”

“I am a traitor's sister, barely deserving of the mercy given me by my beloved Joffrey and the gracious Queen.” The sad earnestness with which she delivers the parroted lines turns his stomach, for they sound almost genuine. From the very moment he saw the whip-marks, Jon had been filled with a simmering rage. Unlike Oberyn's tendency for impetuous violence, Jon tended to be more like a glacier. Until now. Now was different.

“But you don't believe such lies, do you, Princess Sansa?” Oberyn asks her.

She burrows her cheek deeper into her pillow. “No. But I was a good little dove, I sang my part. Nobody thinks such a stupid little girl is a threat.”

“And thus you survived, my lady. Completely by your wits. That is to be commended."

“You'll excuse me if I don't find that reassuring,” Sansa replies tartly, prompting a bark of laughter on Oberyn's part. Nymeria returns then with a produce box full of things her father had asked for. Jon keeps his hold on Sansa as they watch Oberyn mix a few ingredients into a salve, then pour a sharp-smelling liquid into a bowl, which he then dips a thin towel into.

“What's that?” he asks.

“An astringent. We need to properly clean the wounds and put a stop to any infection that has developed.” Oberyn's explanation does little to put Jon's unease to rest.

“That part is going to hurt,” Sansa states it as incontrovertible fact rather than a question and Jon hates the wary acceptance in her eyes.

Oberyn has the grace to look regretful as he lifts the sodden cloth from the bowl. “Yes, I'm afraid it will.”

The expression that steals over Sansa's face then, Jon recognizes. He has seen it before, when she was but a child being scolded. To Lord Stark, who had been disciplining her, she was ducking her chin down in contrition, ashamed of her behavior. But anyone with a low enough vantage point would have seen the mulish clench in her jaw, the hot heat of mutinous tears in her eyes. She hadn't agreed that she was in the wrong, but she had been wise enough to accept her punishment. And now, she has that same tilt to her jaw, the same hard stare as she digs her fingernails into his palm to brace herself.

Oberyn wastes no time laying the wet cloth over her back.

 

 

 

It's just past dawn. Jon can see the violent reds and purples out the small window of Sansa's cabin. Looking down at the woman slumped in the bed, he catches sight of the curve of her breast, pressed as it is into the mattress, and looks away in shame. She is in pain and will likely carry scars on her back for the rest of her life and here he is, gawking at her like an untried boy at the first glimpse of a naked breast. He sits here in this rickety, uncomfortable chair, and watches her sleep while he castigates himself for thinking so covetously of the way she'd moaned against his throat and rubbed against him. Of course that had not been pleasure for her, but pain!

She hadn't done more than whine and breath shallowly when Oberyn laid that astringent upon her back, though it had to have burned horribly. But Sansa,  _his little red wolf_ , she had been so strong, so brave. She had held onto Jon all through the application of salve to help speed the healing of the split skin. And he had remained long after Oberyn and Nymeria had left for their own cabins, refusing to even leave her side.

In the darkest hours before dawn, there had been nothing to do but think.

When Jon had found out about his parentage, that he was not a bastard but legitimately a prince, his first instinct had been to refuse it. He had earned his way in the world as a bastard and there was something almost...frightening about potentially getting everything he'd ever secretly wanted. He may be a knight, but that did not mean land or security enough to support a wife and children. And that was his deepest wish. Dany had spoken of her intention to bestow upon him a lordship as befitting a prince and princess of the realm. That made it even more real, and him even more terrified. Would he ever  _not_  be conscious of the years he spent as a bastard? True, there was less stigma in Dorne, but he would not be able to hide away there forever as his aunt's heir.

He's spent enough time wondering what his mother's family will think when they find out. He doesn't have a clue about Arya let alone Bran, who had been born after Jon was sent to White Harbor. But Robb? Lady Catelyn? It had been Robb who tried diligently to keep in touch, sending Jon letters over the years.

Any joy or...let's be honest, goodwill, on their parts is likely to evaporate once they find out he has wed Sansa. And with that thought, Jon is brought back full circle to the woman in the bed before him. He promises her right then and there that he will devote himself to keeping her safe and happy, with no expectation for affection or children in return, his aunt be damned. And so he whiles away the hours of the early morning standing sentinel over Sansa, watching the slow rise and fall of her back in the candlelight and the slight frown marring her features.

It would be a worthwhile sacrifice.


End file.
